Friday, November 15, 2019

Fun Finds: Hollywood Studio Magazine, May 1985

This past weekend was the infamous Dayton Book Fair, in which a convention center is filled with books of all sorts for $2.00 apiece (hardback) and $1.00 paperback. I always make it a point to attend because one never knows what's going to be lying around. (This year I got a horde of interesting paperbacks more than hardbacks, but I did find the now-rare-ish autobiography of Jean Negulesco, who didn't register with me at all when it first came out in 1984, but who directed many films I now enjoy.) I was sad that I couldn't go on Sunday when, for the price of $7.50, one could fill a brown grocery bag with as many books as could be fit into it! But I was pressed into adjudicating a matinee musical performance and couldn't get out of it. This magazine, the only one I picked up, seemed like it would be fun to share with everyone here. I do have to confess I don't like the photo of Rita Hayworth on the cover as she somehow looks bleak and hard rather than sensuous and elegant as I prefer to think of her. And on we go!

I've mentioned it here before when I have presented issues of Hollywood Studio Magazine but its editor (Joan Evans) from 1966 on, was the goddaughter of Joan Crawford and was, in fact, named after her (her parents were Hollywood writers.) Things went sour when seventeen year-old Joan wanted to wed a car salesman named Kirby Weatherly against her parents' wishes. Crawford approved and held the wedding in her home (without mom and pop around!) and though it was a friendship-ending bit of duplicity, Evans and Weatherly remain wed to this day, a scant sixty-seven years later! Evans remained devoted to Crawford throughout and after her life. Interesting here that she had to apologize for use of the word "broad" in this publication. That trend of people (often a proportionately small number) suddenly taking offense at once commonly-used words was already taking hold in 1985 and persists today. Also, I doubt that I would have found the 1984 Oscar telecast boring, as one reader did, but I certainly find it so now...!
This is a curious placement of the header to the main article since said article doesn't pop up for almost 20 more pages! I doubt anyone can't guess where Loretta Young would fall in this little game of categories (and it looks like Rita is going to wind up in the other one.)
If you want a really depressing read, try the book "The Peter Lawford Story" by Patricia Seaton Lawford on her husband, which takes place during the later parts of his life.
I'm sorry, and no harm to Peter's work as an actor, but he looks truly ridiculous as MacBeth! I much prefer him in his youthful parts in things like The White Cliffs of Dover (1944), Good News (1947) and Little Women (1949), among others.
Not long after this issue was published, Mr. Connery embarked on a string of movies that finally broke him free of the James Bond mold and proved his acting talent. The Name of the Rose (1986) earned him a BAFTA award, The Untouchables (1987) won him an Oscar and The Hunt for Red October (1990, another BAFTA nomination), among others, proved his box office appeal. He stepped away from acting, of his own accord, in 2003.
My generation's Bond was Roger Moore (the first one of the series I ever saw was For Your Eyes Only, 1981) so I had to learn about Connery's Bond by going backwards. I recall once seeing some artwork not dissimilar to the middle picture above (though I thought it was for Thunderball, 1965, not From Russia With Love, 1963) in which Connery was depicted as being nude during his massage and thinking, "Oh, okay... I'm going to need to see this!" The artwork (which I will attempt to locate for you) turned out to be a lie, sadly, as he was covered up by a sheet (with, I think, shorts on under that even!)
I very much enjoy Connery's Bond films, but my favorite movies of his are in other genres, including Marnie (1964), Shalako (1968), The Anderson Tapes (1971) and Zardoz (1974) not to forget Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and The Wind and the Lion (1975.) Then there is the disastrous Meteor (1978!) But I really tended to like him in most everything I saw of his.
Miss Maureen O'Hara
My affection for Ms. O'Hara has been amply demonstrated here and here. It's fascinating to realize that before the advent of American Movie Classics, which later disappointingly changed its format, and Turner Classic Movies, fans of older films were resigned to having to watch their beloved projects in terrible prints, hacked to death for commercial breaks and running time, if they could even find them at all! Ted Turner was many things, not all of them great, but I am indebted to him for TCM (although it must be said that the channel's integrity was very much due to its incredible first and longtime host, the late Robert Osborne.)
It was neat to read more about O'Hara's case against Confidential magazine and other aspects of her life and career. And I'm howling over the hilarious diatribe against remakes that was tacked onto the end of the article. There's a man after my own heart, though I think I might be glad that no sequel to The Quiet Man (1952) was ever produced.
This is a pretty interesting interview with Ms. Hepburn, who wasn't exactly the most easy person to land for such a thing. Nowhere on this page does the article even mention the movie she was making at the time...!
The movie in question was Grace Quigley (1984), which had been in a bit of development hell for a dozen years. Initially intended as a project for Hepburn and Steve McQueen, the black comedy ultimately emerged with Nick Nolte (who Hepburn claimed was drunk throughout) and fizzled at the box office (and with many critics.) It's reputation has increased slightly over the years, however.
Though she worked several times in TV-movies after this, Hepburn made no more features until the ill-advised Love Affair (1994), which proved to be her swan song.
I have never seen Lady Be Good (1941) and to be honest had heard precious little about it apart from seeing some dancing clips along the way, so it was interesting to read about some of these stars and their reflections on the movie and their relationships to one another.
You'll hate me for saying this, but I've never seen ANY Eleanor Powell movie...! I'll have to make a point to see one some time.
I've long been a fan of Ann Sothern, however, whose career went on for far longer a time.
Some of these aren't great photos of the ladies, but it's still neat to see them during this period. Rose Hobart's promising screen career skidded to a halt in the late-1940s as she was blacklisted for her political stances. She lived to be ninety-four when natural causes claimed her in 2000. Virginia O'Brien, who passed away of a heart attack at age eighty-one in 2001, was married for about a dozen years to one-time 1940s movie Superman Kirk Alyn. Is that the best pic they could come up with of Connie Russell? She passed away five years after this issue of a heart ailment at only sixty-seven.
The author of the book excerpted in this segment, Laurie Jacobson, seemed to specialize in downbeat topics, from tragedies to sordid gossip to eerie ghosts to the torture-some experiences of her husband Jon Provost when he was starring on TV's Lassie. I did, however, LOVE the book in question, "Hollywood Heartbreak: The Tragic and Mysterious Deaths of Hollywood's Most Remarkable Legends."
There is a hilarious error in this text, however. Reference is made to Mineo's plays, "Fortune" and "Men's Eyes," as both being performed in L.A. and on Broadway. First off, there was a SINGLE play, called "Fortune and Men's Eyes." Secondly, the daring play was never produced on Broadway. It had three runs Off-Broadway, one of which was directed by Mineo. 
Now we come to the cover story, which strove to categorize famed leading actresses and either ladies, broads or in-betweeners.
I'll wait while you print off this list and mark your votes accordingly...
Page one of a center-spread featuring a few of the gals in question...
...followed by page two.
I usually try to piece things like this together so your overall viewing experience is not encumbered.
The next article begins at the side of this page. A man named Patrick Brock recollects his association with Ramon Novarro. (It may have been unintentional, but that's the second star in this issue who was gay and savagely murdered...!)
I'm not sure how well Brock actually knew Novarro, no matter the article's title, but the bit about Valentino and his "sculpture" has since been discounted entirely, especially with regards to the murder itself. He is merely repeating gossip from a highly-questionable source. I also had to grin/grimace at the author's use of the term "deviation."
Here is someone I know practically nothing about. It was interesting to learn more about her.
Rare was the gal who could evade Errol Flynn! She married that fiance and was with him thirty years until his death. And there's an amusing anecdote about Tallulah Bankhead, too. I don't think I have ever seen Ms. King in anything! But her career stretched up into the 1990s. She passed away in 2003 of natural causes at age eighty-four. Most fascinating trivia tidbit? Reportedly she never once bought any groceries or cooked in her life, eating all three meals out every. single. day.
This article on the amazing movie houses of the golden age could have used more pictures.
There are books out there on the subject, though, and those places were simply incredible!
These photos go with the column on the following page. Neat that Peter Fonda, whose father Henry starred in the movie, came to see that stage version of 12 Angry Men. But it was the opener at The Henry Fonda Theatre, so it stands to reason. I don't recall ever seeing Cyd Charisse's hair this way before. She looks great.
I have the DVD of Irwin Allen's Alice in Wonderland and it is a loo-loo! Countless older stars drift by in the two-part tale, but it's rendered pretty painful by the casting of an utterly charmless little girl as Alice. I found it interesting that John James reportedly didn't wish to be photographed with Ken Kercheval of a rival prime-time soap. Really...?
Almost all, if not every one, of the movies listed in this ad were public domain, meaning the quality was going to be beyond awful! And yet the distributor was getting $20.00/each for them - not an insubstantial price for 1985! Look at the prices of the videos being released in the main article... wildly expensive even today, but back then? Crikey!!
Here's Andrea King again, this time with her one-hundred year-old mother who I must say looks great! I had to chortle at the name of the one Japanese restaurant, "Joy of Tempura!" Sounds right up my alley...!
I always delight in reading the letters from readers in old mags like this. The people always spell out their feelings, good or bad, very plainly and bluntly. I can recall GWTW (1939) being released on home video (and thankfully the movie wasn't filmed in widescreen, so it's true that it looked pretty good in the old TV ratio) and the price was a steep $99.99!! (I think I paid about $5.00 for my DVD of it...!)
I had utterly forgotten that there was ever a movie called Sylvester (1985) or that Melissa Gilbert starred in it! I only think of her in TV-movie remakes like The Miracle Worker (1978), The Diary of Anne Frank (1980) or Splendor in the Grass (1981.) I never saw it, but with Michael Schoeffling on hand it couldn't be a total loss....!
Here are the names of the leading actresses along with the category that they were determined to have fallen into by the magazine's staff.
In this last article, we find that the author of the Ramon Novarro piece also knew Laurence Olivier. He seems to have had a better grip on Olivier than he did on Novarro despite only limited meetings with him over the years. It's a nice write-up, though.
Lord Olivier at or near his peak.
And with that, I give you, as promised, The End!

8 comments:

Scooter said...

Great post. Thanks! I've always wondered, do you keep these old magazines after you purchase and read them or do you discard them after scanning? If you are interested in old Hollywood scandals and mysterious deaths, you might check out the book, "A Cast of Killers" chronicling King Vidor's investigation into the murder of William Desmond Taylor in the early 20's silent era.

Gingerguy said...

Fun mag and your book fair would be the highlight of my year (and major Christmas shopping). I think who and what was considered a Lady has changed considerably since 1985, I know for sure what category Susan Hayward would fall into (that expression in the photo!) and I wouldn't have her any other way.
Great pics of Sean, he was always my first Bond because the 60's films played on tv when I was a kid. Recently his first return to the franchise "Diamonds Are Forever" played on TCM. 9 years had made a big difference since the first film, he's perfection in the early ones and in "Marnie". As you pointed out, his acting is great in his later stuff, I loved "The Name Of The Rose".
Poseidon I don't hate you for Eleanor Powell, I find her bland, BUT for camp appeal you have to check out the dance sequences in some of her films, she jumps through hoops, literally. Cellophane ones. Reading this magazine would have been a perfect afternoon for me back in the day, by a pool with a giant iced tea.

Alan Scott said...

Sam Elliott! [swoon!]

Huttonmy710 said...

That breakup between Joan Crawford and her decades old friendship with Dale and Katharine. I'm sure you read up on it further but Joan did what she did very likely in retaliation for that quite frankly awful film The Star. Bette Davis playing Margaret Elliot who allegedly was based on Crawford. I love Joan's opinion of Davis in that film,
"Of course I had heard she was supposed to be playing me, but I didn't believe it. Did you see the picture? It couldn't possibly be me. Bette looked so old, and so dreadfully overweight." So very true and unfortunately the same could be said of Jessica lange in Feud.
The Star is truly one of Davis' worst (those mannerisms at their worst) and how she was nominated for an Oscar over Barbara Stanwyck for Clash By Night is beyond me. Stanwyck should have the 10 nominations not Davis.

hsc said...

The magazine actually has the wrong James Bond movie-- that's not FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, that's Margaret Nolan as "Dink" giving Bond a poolside rubdown in the early scenes of GOLDFINGER (another shot with a better view of Connery):

https://media.gq.com/photos/563b83cea3bd50211a999734/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/HTRA132_VV012_H.JPG

(Trivia: Margaret Nolan also was the gold-painted girl in the posters and opening credits for GOLDFINGER, though it was Shirley Eaton in the film.)

The artwork you posted at the end was by Robert McGinnis, who did the illustrations for a number of the Bond movie posters. This was a specially commissioned piece that was sort of distributed in-house at EON Productions during the making of THUNDERBALL and wasn't meant for public viewing. Later, they had someone paint shorts on Bond and released it in some of the foreign markets as ad art.

There was a corresponding scene in THUNDERBALL where Bond gets massaged with a mink glove by therapist Molly Peters while-- as you say-- he's discreetly draped in a sheet:

https://media.gq.com/photos/563b84393cc8fcfe0e19d425/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/MCDTHUN_EC015_H.JPG

However, LIFE magazine did a spread on THUNDERBALL that featured a behind-the-scenes shot of Peters and Connery (upper right) that shows him face up with a smug look on his face, and the image crops off in a way that implies exposure. Or at least it did to *my* pubescent mind-- and caused me to do a bit of rubbing myself!:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/a4/72/e3a472c3ac5996cffa2661383fd671c8.jpg

Finally, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE featured Bond getting rubbed down by multiple Japanese bath girls:
https://media.gq.com/photos/563b844ea3bd50211a99973d/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/MBDYOON_EC015_H.JPG

https://media.gq.com/photos/563b89a53cc8fcfe0e19d4bf/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/GettyImages-141564030.jpg

and a version of this scene was featured in poster art by Robert McGinnis:

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_p4I9kL_myy0/S4mmfoGI44I/AAAAAAAACjU/CaRqjk-sXXM/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/you+only+live+twice+robert+mcginnis+bath+artwork.jpg



Great entry as usual-- these magazine finds are always great fun, and I used to get this magazine when it started showing up at a local bookstore a few years after this issue!

jobj69 said...

Thanks for the fun reading, Poseidon! You really do need to check out Miss Eleanor Powell sometime, even for clips on YouTube. She could be, as an earlier post mentioned, somewhat bland, her acting and singing skills (though probably dubbed at times) not her strong suit. Her dancing, on the other hand, is quite fantastic. Considered by many to be one of the best dancers (most notable, tap) in films, due to her perfectionism, machine gun tapping, and elaborately choreographed routines.

I would recommend looking at her numbers in The Broadway Melody of 1940, with Mr. Fred Astaire (their only paring), particularly the Begin the Beguine number, gorgeously filmed in B&W on a black glass floor, which had to be refrigerated to keep it from cracking under the hot lights!

There are so many, but another personal favorite also on YouTube is a number she does in the film Ship Ahoy - Tallulah - which includes some percussive fun with Tommy Dorsey and drummer Buddy Rich around the pool of a luxury ocean liner. Of course, as in all of the great movie musicals, it is impressive that these complicated routines are done in one take. Her numbers are especially so, as she often incorporates a number of props in her routines.

She left the business a while to concentrate on raising her son with then-husband, Glenn Ford, though she did host a TV program in the 50s, The Faith of Our Children. Fun fact, this religious-themed series featured a child actor named John Robert Stillman, who grew up to be famous gay porn icon, Jack Wrangler! Yee-hah! Beyond that, some nightclub work in the 60s, I believe.

Have fun discovering Eleanor. I think Lady Be Good can currently be watched on TCM on demand, at least for a couple of weeks...perhaps a watch and a future blog for you! xo-

PS - the 60s art work of James Bond getting his massage, pistol pointed sky high, is delightful!

A said...

HI Poseidon! Some of my favorites! Sam Elliott, Sean Connery! Elenor Powell? Not so much. As was said earlier, acting was not one of her strong suits. She was pretty awful, I think. I found her dancing more weird than anything.
Anyway, another wonderful post. Thanks so much!

A.

Poseidon3 said...

Scooter, I do keep all these magazines... and plenty of books... and paperbacks. I worry all the time that I'm in danger of being a hoarder, but I somehow feel like I have to "rescue" some of this stuff that's lying in bargain bins or flea markets or something! Everyone dumped their vinyl records and now those are coming back. Books CURRENTLY seem to be on the way out, but I think there will be a day when we want them again. (I know I still do now!) I did read that book one or two summers ago and loved it...! A friend of mine whose mother loves old Hollywood gave it to me when she was done with it. Thanks!

Gingerguy, as much as you'd like the Dayton Book Fair, you'd flip your lid at the Half Price Books Clearance Sale and the Friends of the Public Library Annual Sale. It's craziness, with all the great things available for $1.00 or $2.00... Makes me want to have a library in my house. Maybe my next one... I have been remiss in my exploration of old b&w musicals in general. I just watched for the first time, however, "We're Not Dressing"... Wow. Barely any plot, but a certain amount of fun. Ethel Merman wore a dress to die for. (Yes...! Ethel Merman, even though Carole Lombard was the female lead!)

Alan, hilarious that the one pic of Sam was your takeaway, but, yes, he is dreamy...!

Huttonmy710, thank you for the added info on Crawford and her screenwriter frenemies!! I enjoy Joan, Bette and Barbara, though Joan is my favorite. I enjoy Bette the most in some of her atypical parts. For instance, I love the understated performance she gives in "All This, and Heaven Too." I recently saw "Juarez" for the first time and was shocked at how horribly over-the-top she went near the end...! Barbara was nearly always just plain good and I, naturally, thought she continued to be dazzling even on "The Big Valley," no matter the blue eye shadow and false lashes!

hsc, thanks for clarifying all the Bond stuff. The added pictures were great, especially the color one from "Goldfinger." Sean was so, so, so manly and handsome. I don't want to ruin your fantasies, but he seemed to always be VERY discrete about nudity in general and I tend to doubt he was ever naked on set. It's hard enough to find instances of him nude in any movie... he always seemed to wear flesh-toned briefs or something like that, as was the norm for most people, I guess. Thank God he was willing to show off his chest and legs, though.

jobj69, thanks for the EP recommendations. I can't help but thinking of Glenn Ford and her as such an oddball pairing!! And he was such a busy actor, it amazes me that she never appeared in films of his at any point. I guess they were of two worlds cinematically as well...? That is a scream about Jack Wrangler having been on her show!! Talk about a 180-degree turn!

A, glad you liked this magazine. I'm going to have to check Eleanor out regardless so that I can have some basis for even an opinion!