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Ronald Reagan for Jeris and "handsomer" hair. 

Susan Hayward for Max Factor.

John Wayne for Budweiser and throwing "middle-management" out the window. 

Shirley Temple for flour and all its sweet rewards. 

Spencer Tracy for the not-so-lucky Lucky Strike. Shout!

Tippi Hedren for Gleem and brushing less.

Orson Welles and daughter Rebecca for alcoholism closing the generation gap with Jim Beam.  

Tonight on TCM!
Cary Grant! Bringing Up Baby is a must see!

The V.I.P.s (1963)

Set in the V.I.P. section of a terminal at Heathrow, characters and their stories interconnect as each try to reach a highly significant destination. Grounded by fog for an indeterminable amount of time, the central characters Frances Andros (Elizabeth Taylor) and international playboy Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan) worry over the note that Frances has left her husband, millionaire Paul Andros (Richard Burton). After thirteen years of marriage, Frances is leaving Paul because he no longer seems to need her. She is eloping with Marc who is much needier for her affection and truly loves her for her and not her money, which she will also be leaving behind.


Film producer Max Buda (Orson Welles) must leave London by midnight in order to avoid paying hefty taxes from the profit of his film work. Taking his newest protégée Gloria Gritti (Elsa Martinelli) with him, he will need to make serious sacrifices to his art and his personal life to avoid paying out.

Les Mangrum (Rod Taylor), an Australian businessman has just taken a huge risk by writing a bad check to cover for the stock he bought in order for his company not to be bought out. Hoping to get to his board meeting in New York and get the money to cover the bad check before it goes through, Mangum is lost when his plane is grounded and his backers in New York refuse to wire the needed funds. His secretary, Miss Mead (Maggie Smith), is the soul of efficiency and discretion. Secretly in love with Mangrum, she does what it takes to save Mangrum's company.

Lastly, there is The Duchess of Brighton (Margaret Rutherford), who is on her way to Florida to take a job which will pay her enough money to save her ancestral home which she is loathe to leave. Unfamiliar with planes, she is on a mixture of uppers and downers given to her by friends to help her get through the travel.



This is the third film I have seen with the Taylor-Burton pairing and by far pales in comparison to the other two. Lacking the powerful dialogue and action I saw in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Taming of the Shrew, I had the sense they were simply going through the motions. It’s rumored that Taylor asked for this role specifically because she did not want Sophia Loren (who director Anthony Asquith wanted) near Burton. However, it’s just as likely that the box office draw of Taylor and Burton directly after the Cleopatra debacle both on and off the screen convince Asquith to pair them up.

However, that does not mean the movie is not interesting, it’s definitley worth a watch to see the comedy relief provided by Welles and Rutherford. Personally, I could watch Rutherford all day, she has a very unique way of speaking and acting that I find highly amusing.



Tonight on TCM! Ann Dvorak!
Scarface (1932) A murderous thug shoots his way to the top of the mobs while trying to protect his sister from the criminal life. Dir: Howard Hawks Cast: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley.

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Judy Garland for sleeping in your Max Factor.

Sean Connery for Alcoholism.

Ann Blyth for Lux and conch shells.

Billie Burke for RyKrisp and serious competition.

Tony Curtis for Van Heusen. Real men wear pink!

David Niven for First National but not for the virtue related to patience.

Orson Welles for Paul Masson's  ripe Cab Sav.

S&G: We aim to please...

Tonight on TCM! I can't stand how good the line up is tonight!!

The Snake Pit (1948) A young woman tries to recover her sanity in a corrupt mental institution.

Cast: Olivia deHavilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm Dir: Anatole Litvak

The Heiress (1949) A plain young woman's money makes her prey to fortune hunters.
Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins Dir: William Wyler

A Place in the Sun (1951) An ambitious young man wins an heiress's heart but has to cope with his former girlfriend's pregnancy. Cast: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere Dir: George

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958)
A dying plantation owner tries to help his alcoholic son solve his problems. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Jack Carson Dir: Richard Brooks

Through the looking glass...

Joan Crawford

Jean Arthur

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth

Gary Grant


Joan Blondell

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Minnelli on Minnelli: Liza Remembers Vincente (1987) Liza Minnelli shares memories of her famous father while showing clips from his greatest movies.Cast: Liza Minnelli Dir: Richard Schickel

Camera Shot!

Robert Montgomery and George Hurrell.

Ruth Chatterton most likely on the set of Frisco Jenny.


Burton and Taylor on the set of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Director Clarence Brown on the set of Anna Karenina with Garbo and March.

On the set of Gone With the Wind.

Herbert Brenon and Alla Nazimova.

Orson Welles

Tonight on TCM!

Strange Cargo (1940) Devil's Island escapees are changed forever by a prisoner who thinks he's Jesus.Cast: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Ian Hunter, Peter Lorre Dir: Frank Borzage

Marriage Among the Stars...

In the next few blog entries I will be posting pics and information about several classic actors and actresses and their marriages. I will be focusing on star on star marriages.

It's a well documented fact that being in the limelight is not conducive to a healthy marriage. The likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Gloria Swanson, and Cary Grant to name a few, are perfect examples of serial marrieds. Hectic schedules, romantic scenes with aesthetically pleasing co-stars, and basic human error often play roles of their own.


Let's begin with the stars that married more than one star.

George Brent's first wife was Ruth Chatterton (who was married to actor Ralph Forbes beforehand). After that marriage dissolved he tried his hand years later with the lovely Ann Sheridan.

Orson Welles was a talented man, he also had great taste in women. Before Rita Hayworth "couldn't take his genius anymore", he had a torrid affair with domestic partner Dolores del Río.

I was suprised to learn that Joan Blondell (who was also married to the notorious Mike Todd) and Dick Powell were married. I always thought it was just him and June Allyson.

I think Reagan would have been a one-time marriage guy if Jane Wyman had stuck around, from what I read she really broke his heart. But Nancy Davis put it back together and thus history was made.

I was under the impression that it wasn't really proven that Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard had married, I thoguht the general consensus was that they travelled extensively together until things went kaput. Guess they did. After Chaplin Goddard married funnyman Burgess Meredith and ironically (at least for me) I just read that she was also married to Erich Maria Remarque the author of All Quiet on the Western Front- a phrase I kept repeating to myself last night as I cooked dinner (I have no idea why).

Bogie and Bacall is practically a household name but little did I know that Bacall also married Jason Robards the crochety old man I remember fondly from Parenthood.

Ava Gardner first married Mickey Rooney (pardon me but, WTF?) Then she married Frank Sinatra who left his wife for her thus catipulting Ava into fame and leaving Frank to dependent on her studio clout to get him a desired part that brought him back into favor again. Ah, Hollywood.

Joan Crawford reportedly ended her marriage to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. due to her affair with Clark Gable (whom she starred in eight films with) and then married Franchot Tone (another repeat offender, he also married actresses Jean Wallace, Barbara Payton and Dolores Dorn) but it was Joan who reportedly took him into her home and cared for him until his death from lung cancer.

Carole Lombard knew how to pick em! She got herself two fine actors, William Powell and Clark Gable.

After his first marriage to actress Virginia Cherrill, Cary Grant went on to marry two more actresses, Betsy Drake and Dyan Cannon.

Other repeat offenders are:

George Sanders got himself two Gabors. Pictured above is Zsa Zsa and after his longest marriage stint to Benita Hume (who married him after the death of Ronald Colman), he married Zsa Zsa's sister, Magda. Whoa.
Benita Hume was married to Ronald Colman then George Sanders.

Mary Pickford left actor Owen Moore to marry Douglas Fairbanks Sr.. Then she married actor Charles "Buddy" Rogers.

Bogey was also married to actress Mary Phillips and also to Mayo Methot whom he divorced before marrying Bacall only two weeks later.

The king of them: John Barrymore married only actresses. Besides Dolores Costello, pictured below, he married Katherine Corri Harris, Blanche Oelrichs, and Elaine Barrie.

Tonight on TCM!

Summer Under the Stars: Judy Garland