Author Archives: Hannah K.

Classic Hollywood #197 – Mary Pickford & Marilyn Miller

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Mary Pickford Prepares Marilyn Miller For Her First Screen Test

Mary Helps Marilynn Primp Up For Her First Screen Appearance

Mary Pickford, the world’s sweetheart, is here seen assisting Marilynn Miller, her sister-in-law to put the final touches to her hair before taking her first screen test. Marilynn was recently given a test at the Pickford-Fairbanks studio, and it proved highly satisfactory. photo: Kadel & Herbert News Photos, October 1923

Marilyn Miller (born Mary Ellen Reynolds, September 1, 1898)  was a Ziegfeld Follies headliner before she was 20-years-old. Continue reading →

Marrying Your Ex Without Realizing It

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Couple Who Divorced Almost Remarried Each Other

After 25 Years Apart, They Didn’t Recognize Their Ex Spouse

There are stories that are so bizarre you think they cannot be true. This brief article from The Meridan Daily Journal ran September 1, 1906.  Several other newspapers including The New York Tribune (also reproduced below) and Washington Times would tell the tale as well. Continue reading →

Classic Hollywood #196 – Future Movie Star Esther Williams

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16-Year-Old Swimming Champion Esther Williams – 1938

It will not come as a surprise to anyone who has ever seen an Esther Williams film that she was a swimming star before a film star.

The caption from our news photo reads:

Time Out To Pose
Los Angeles, Calif. – Photo shows (left to right) Iris Cummings, National 220-yard breaststroke champion: Billie Steitz, Pacific coast backstroke titlist and Esther Williams, freestyle star, as they pose during a practice session. The trio will take place in the Southern California swimming and diving meet within a few days in the Los Angeles Athletic Club pool, as well as the National Championships next month. Credit Acme Photos; March 22, 1938

Williams first major film role was in “Andy Hardy’s Double Life” (1942). Did it really take four years from the time of this photograph to discover Esther Williams? Continue reading →

Classic Hollywood #195 – Tyrone Power & Sonja Henie

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Tyrone Power & Sonja Henie Dining -1937

Skating Star & Actor Who Are Romancing
Beverly Hills, CA – Sonja Henie, famous figure skating star, at present working in pictures in Hollywood, and Tyrone Power actor, do a little billing and cooing at the Tropics Cafe, here. Photo: International News Photos February 7 , 1937.

Tyrone Power was Sonja Henie’s co-star in Thin Ice with production of the film running from May through July 1937. It’s the story of a hotel ski instructor who falls in love with a man who goes skiing every morning.

Sonja Henie was born on April 8, 1912. The Norwegian three-time Gold medal Olympic skater Continue reading →

Classic Hollywood #192 – William Powell

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William Powell Paramount Publicity Photograph 1929

And A Rare Interview About Playing A Part

37-year-old William Powell looks very tan in this 1929 Paramount Pictures publicity photograph. Powell also looks like he has a case of the mumps.

Powell is best known to classic movie fans for author Dashiell Hammett’s creation; Nick Charles, a former private detective, in a series of hugely popular Thin Man films with Myrna Loy Continue reading →

Fashions Of The 1970s – Men’s & Women’s T-Shirts

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The Fashionable T-Shirt 1973

August 17, 1973 – New York: T-shirt collectors vie to outdo each other. Nancy Greenberg wears gaudy New York souvenir shirt. What mother never told Kathleen O’Connell about is Ultra-Brite toothpaste. French Gitanes shirt worn by Paula Scher is more desirable than American brands; photos: Nancy Moran / New Yoik Times

August 17, 1973 – New York: Jean-Louis Hym’s Liberation shirt from Paris proclaims underground paper. Joel Handrroff, an artist, is not a country music fan, but he likes the shirt because of the black-on-yellow color scheme. Barry Levine’s extols Automotive High School. photo: Nancy Moran / New York Times

Fashions may change, but t-shirts have remained a staple of young people for more than half a century as evidenced by these photographs of young New Yorkers taken in 1973.

If you are wondering what a standard t-shirt cost in the early seventies, generally it was $1.98 for a regular t-shirt and $2.98 for a deluxe heavier cotton. Specialty t-shirts cost more. Continue reading →

Book Review – Building The Metropolis By Alexander Wood

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Building New York City 1880 – 1935

A tremendous flurry of construction in New York City occurred between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. New Yorker’s know many of the the notable accomplishments; the subway, the skyscrapers, apartment buildings, bridges and infrastructure. But who built New York? And how did it get built?

Stories Previously Untold

Alexander Wood provides the nitty-gritty about how the modern city came to be in Building The Metropolis Architecture, Construction, and Labor in New York City, 1880 – 1935 (University of Chicago Press), 2025.

Building The Metropolis digs into the architects, unions, developers and the industries that made New York.

Even with thousands of books previously written about New York, Wood uncovers ground that has not been thoroughly explored. The result is an entertaining examination into the details of developing New York. Continue reading →

Brigitte Bardot Dies At 91 – First American News Feature Was 1952

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Brigitte Bardot Dead

Was Noticed By A Hollywood News Writer In 1952 Before Worldwide Fame

Brigitte Bardot in Madrid, Spain, 1957 photographer: Peter Basch

Brigitte Bardot, who quit film acting at age 39 in 1973 to devote herself to animal rights is dead.

The Fondation Brigitte Bardot who announced her death did not reveal a cause, place or date that she died.

Her obituary appears worldwide, so we will not cover the details of her long and sometimes controversial life or film career.

What interested us is: when did Bardot first come to notice in the United States? Continue reading →