At 19, Lillian Hall-Davis entered the world of acting. Hoping to convey a sophisticated upbringing and high social status, she listed her place of birth as the fashionable Hampstead section of London. In reality, she hailed from the working-class neighborhood of Mile End, where she led a far-from-glamourous life as the daughter of a cab driver. …
On November 14, 1970, Robin Graham went out with some friends. Around quarter-to-two in the morning, after a night of fun, Robin was dropped off at her car, which she had left in the parking lot of the Pier 1 Imports store where she was a part-time employee. Robin waved and bid her friends ‘good …
While she attended Textile High School in New York, Maggie McNamara worked as a teen model, becoming one of the most successful models at the John Robert Powers’ modeling agency. At 23, she made her acting debut, replacing Barbara Bel Geddes in a stage production of The Moon is Blue. Later the same year, she debuted on …
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “lonely”. In 1939, Judy Garland won a Juvenile Academy Award (the category no longer exists). She went on to receive two Academy Award nominations. She is a two-time Grammy Award winner and Grammy Hall of Fame inductee. She had a 40-year career in movies and television. The American Film Institute placed her among the …
After her five-year contract expired, silent film sex symbol Theda Bara retired from the silver screen. Fox Studios scrambled for a suitable replacement. Stage actress Betty Blythe fit the bill. Betty was recruited to appear in a series of costume productions originally tagged for Bara, including the famously risqué The Queen of Sheba in 1921. …
Little Lizzie Borden invited a few friends for a sleepover. Then, things got a little out of hand.
Brian Keith had show business in his blood. The son of stage actor Robert Keith and actress Helena Shipman, young Brian made his motion picture debut in the 1924 silent film Pied Piper Malone at the age of 3. After his parents’ divorce, Brian’s father briefly married actress Peg Entwistle, whose claim to fame was …
I was always a big fan of George Carlin, the original purveyor of counterculture, hippie humor. I remember watching him on The Tonight Show, always amused by the hearty laughs he coaxed out of host Johnny Carson. I remember hearing a George Carlin comedy album at a friend’s house and rolling on the floor in hysterics at …
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “secret”. “Bachelor number one is a successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the darkroom at the age of 13, fully developed. Between takes you might find him skydiving or motorcycling.” Host Jim Lange’s introduction of Rodney Alcala on The Dating Game, …
By the late 1920s, Helen Chandler was a huge star on Broadway. Her credits numbered twenty plays ranging from broad farce to Shakespeare. As the 30s approached, she hoped her popularity would continued as she headed for Hollywood. Helen had roles in a few pictures including the film version of her popular stage production Outward Bound, about passengers …
