These three candid photographs of Marilyn Monroe at The Actors Studio in New York were taken by Roy Schatt (1909 -2002).
They are currently being offered at auction on April 15, 2015 by Doyle New York Auctioneers & Appraisers. The estimate for all three photos are between $800 – $1,200. The first two photos of Marilyn in the audience is being offered as one lot (lot 569). The other photo (lot 570) captures Marilyn eating lunch.
Because Actors Studio chief Lee Strasberg thought Schatt had real talent as a photographer he was given access to photograph the classes where actors could hone their craft.
You may be familiar with the dated synth infused 1981 #1 hit song Bette Davis Eyes which brought attention to those magnificent eyes of screen legend Bette Davis, but in the 1930’s Bette’s movie studio was more concerned with Bette Davis Thighs.
In 1933 Warner Brothers asked Lloyd’s of London for a policy on the five foot three and a half, 106 pound star to insure that her weight would not go over 120 pounds. If it did Davis’ producers would get $50,000. Continue reading →
A Commercial Recording Release By The Bambino and The Iron Horse
Recently I was reading an old New York Times column from October 7, 1956 by Gay Talese in which he wrote about the history of baseball records. Not home run or pitching records, but baseball related music and spoken word records.
In the article Talese mentions that one of the first record companies to release a baseball record was Pathe records in 1928 when they got Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to make a recording explaining how they hit home runs. It did not sell very well. Almost all baseball related recordings have traditionally done poorly with sales, with the exception of Take Me Out To The Ballgame written in 1908 by Albert Von Tilzer and Jack Norworth. Incredibly neither Von Tilzer or Norworth had ever attended a baseball game prior to writing their hit song.
So I searched for the Ruth – Gehrig recording on youtube and couldn’t find the exact recording mentioned in the article, but came up with this version instead. (Click on the youtube video below). Apparently it is the exact same record as in the Talese article, but Talese is mistaken about the content and the date.
It’s a comedy skit (which is not very funny) advertised Continue reading →
It Was 35 Years Today That The Greatest Front-man in Rock History Died
I clearly remember when Bon Scott of AC/DC died. I heard it on the radio on a dreary February day in 1980. To me he was just a good singer in a band where all the members were very short.
It was sad, but honestly I didn’t think too much about it at the time having heard only some of AC/DC’s songs such as Let There be Rock, Highway To Hell and Touch Too Much. I was more into The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, E.L.O., Judas Priest, Van Halen, The Cars, Elvis Costello and The Clash and many other mainstream bands. But his death sparked an interest in discovering what Bon Scott and AC/DC was about.
Over the next year I would come to love AC/DC especially with the American release of Dirty Deeds in 1981, five years after it was released everywhere else in the world. After hearing Dirty Deeds, I went out and bought all of the old AC/DC albums. To say I liked the Bon Scott version of AC/DC would be an understatement.
As the years have passed and I get older, I get more and more depressed that Bon Scott left us at age 33. It is hard to fathom he has been gone 35 years.
While not diminishing the passing of Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison and countless other rock icons, Bon’s death along with John Lennon’s and John Bonham’s (all coincidentally in 1980) are among the greatest losses to rock music ever.
What Bon Scott would have gone on to do can only be left to conjecture, but I would venture to say he would have built upon the previous successes the band had finally achieved. My friends who had seen AC/DC live said Bon’s charismatic stage presence was palpable in person and it came through on film and video as well. With his unique voice and take no prisoners attitude when performing, the audience felt an authentic connection to Bon Scott.
In the six years Bon Scott was the lead singer for AC/DC he recorded six studio albums. It says a lot that from those six albums are where AC/DC have continually pulled half of their live set from.
Brian Johnson who replaced Bon as AC/DC’s lead singer Continue reading →
This very appealing photograph was taken in 1954 and shows Basil Rathbone and Angela Lansbury eating lunch at the Paramount studio commissary.
Rathbone and Lansbury are in costume for the filming of The Court Jester (1955) which they starred in along with Danny Kaye.
Rathbone looks less than enthused with his meal and Lansbury has taken a couple of bites of her hamburger and has decided to fix her hair, possibly sensing that Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstadt is about to snap this candid photo of the pair.
Boris Karloff gets his make-up applied by Universal’s chief make-up artist Jack Pierce and his assistant Bill Ely (left) for 1939’s Son of Frankenstein. It took four hours per day to apply Karloff’s make-up.
W.C. Fields Died On A Day He Pretended To Despise, Christmas Day 1946
When His Will Was Read, It Had A Peculiar Racial Provision In It
Movie star comedian W.C. Fields is not well remembered by today’s generation, his cerebral brilliance generally going unappreciated or unrecognized. But those who know comedy such as Monty Python’s John Cleese said of Fields, “At a time when political correctness often stifles honesty and impulse to laugh and genuine wit is in such short supply, I think nothing could be healthier than the re-discovery of this most original, perceptive and unrepentant of comedians.”
When Fields died 68 years ago today on December 25, 1946, his will provided small amounts for family members and friends with the $800,000 remainder of his estate being left to establish “The W. C. Fields College for White Orphan Boys and Girls Where No Religion of Any Kind is Ever to be Taught.”
This strange racial provision seemed completely out of character for a man who treated blacks as equals and stood up for racial equality long before it was popular. It was at W.C. Fields insistence that his Zigfield Follies friend, the great black vaudeville star Bert Williams, be allowed to join Actor’s Equity. Williams was finally admitted to the association. Fields said Williams was, “The funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew.”
So why would Fields put this exclusionary provision in his will? Continue reading →
Lilian Harvey was born Helene Lilian Muriel Pape on January 19, 1906 in England. Her mother was British and her father German and Lilian was schooled in Switzerland. Lilian became a leading star in Germany in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
A Hungarian nobleman once offered to give Lilian a castle and a whole village to go along with it. Speaking 13 different languages, Lilian was able to make films in four. She left Germany permanently after the outbreak of World War II. Continue reading →
I’m not sure which production this is from, but when I first came across this photograph of Joan Collins from the 1950’s my first reaction was just “wow.” I don’t think I’ve seen her looking any better than this.
The two early films from this period I remember Joan starring in were The Girl in The Red Velvet Swing, which told the story of Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White and Harry Thaw and Land of the Pharaohs, both from 1955. They are mediocre films and Joan does an admirable job in both. Continue reading →
It’s Been 30 Years Since The Last Outdoor, Daytime World Series Game Was Played – Who’s to Blame? MLB, FOX & “TV Research People”
World Series baseball the way it used to be played – during the day. Pirates center fielder Bill Virdon awaits the first pitch from Yankees ace Whitey Ford to begin game 3 of the 1960 World Series at Yankee Stadium, October 8, 1960.
30 years ago on October 14, 1984 the Detroit Tigers and San Diego Padres played game 5 of the World Series at Tigers Stadium under what used to be normal circumstances – they played a day game.
Three years later in 1987 the Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals also played a day game in the World Series, but you would not have known it because the Twins played their home games indoors at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.
Since then, every World Series game has been played at night. Continue reading →
