You've Got A Lovely Week For It!

Dateline:  Los Angeles, Thanksgiving Week

I just checked the weather.  Mid 70s to low 80s all week and through the weekend.

Are you visiting here?  Do you live here and have friends or relatives in for the holiday?  Or are you having a life-as-usual week and looking for a little something to brighten it up?  Well then this is probably the ideal week to find out exactly what "The Best Hollywood Walking Tour" is all about!

It's brainy, it's funny, it's fascinating and there's not a cheesy tourist-trap on the whole darn thing.  I will be closed on Thanksgiving day because even a researcher likes a little cranberry sauce but, other than that - tours, tours, tours!

So why not join Fred, Rita, Van, Me and all the other spirits that we'll awaken from the legendary days of Film, Radio, TV and Records for a walk.  You could use a walk in the fresh air with all you'll be eating this week anyhow.

Click here for all the info!

Memorandum

All Employees Must Show Identification upon entering the factory.

Thank you,

Harry Cohn, President

I've Been Examined....

This past week  Examiner.com reporter Elisa Jordan did a 5-part series on the six months that young starlet Marilyn Monroe was under contract to Columbia Pictures.  This was in 1948 and, though it was a blink-of-the-eye period, it set some pivotal changes in motion for her.

The last installment which appeared yesterday features an interview with a certain Hollywood historian that we all know and love....

Jordan questions me about the state of affairs on the Columbia Lot in the 40s and you can read it here.

This is the first time Marilyn would see her name on a theater marquee.

Truth In Films.....

Met her.  Oh hell, who am I kidding, been her!

You'll Be Dancing On Rooftops Too!

As the song says, "Ain't it funny how time slips away".  I just looked at the calendar and realized that summer is practically upon us!  With that, I just went into the magical cyber world of Brown Paper Tickets, my official ticket seller, and loaded in all tour dates through the end of August.

Now if you already live in SoCal, I can't imagine for the life of me why you haven't taken the tour yet**

If you're planning a visit this summer, well tickets are now available.  With small tour groups like this, don't let 'em get away.  Get yours today!

You can access BPT directly via the link above, or though the official tour website.

** Authors comments do not apply to the many fabulous folks who already have taken the tour.

This Ball Has Tone.

To satisfy the British censors, re-shoots were ordered for the bedroom scenes on 1947's "My Awful Wife", but not before the cast and crew sought to have a little fun and make a statement.

Somebody, Hold My Earrings!

Marilyn Monroe as Peggy Martin whoopin' some mess outta Marjorie Hoshelle as Bubbles LaRue in the 1948 Columbia offering "Ladies Of The Chorus".  It was her only picture for the studio and the option on her contract was dropped after 6 months.  Withing a couple of years Columbia Prexy Harry Cohn was kicking himself.  Forever after Monroe would be, for him, the one that got away.  And that's how we got Kim Novak.....

The Mystery Gets Revealed!

You know, something in me said, "Don't include the torso picture."

But I didn't listen to myself, which is odd since I always talk to myself.  In any case that was my undoing.  I should have known that there was a pectoral expert among you.

Sure enough, less than 2 hours after the post hit, Jon of Dolores Delargo Towers and Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle guessed correctly when he said:

Just as correct, but a tad bit later were George W and our own Norma Desmond.

So for being the first to guess correctly, Jon is today's Smartest Boy In The Class.

If you recall Columbia's assessment of Wilde's screen test, "Good for occasional bits and spot casting - but he'll never play leads."  Well it was that very studio that signed him and in return, he brought them a nomination for an Academy Award in the Best Actor category, by enacting the role of Frederic Chopin in 1945's "A Night To Remember."

And the crowd went wild(e)!

Despite Paramount's concerns, he was quite a sensation in Technicolor, and regardless of RKO's worry about his head being too small for his body; with that body who noticed!

With wife Jean Wallace

Greatest Show On Earth, 1952

Bandit Of Sherwood Forest, 1946

Indeed!

Behind The Scenes

Katharine Hepburn, in all her intense glory, feeds off-camera lines to her (I'm guessing somewhat intimidated) niece Katharine Houghton on the set of "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner".

Kim Novak Gets Hosed!

That poor fella has such a tough job.

That Evelyn Keyes!

When she wasn't being a Chatty Cathy...

Keenan Wynn and Keyes, "The Thrill of Brazil" 1946

.....she was a complete yo-yo.

Cornel Wilde and Evelyn, "A Thousand And One Nights"

There Never Was A Girl Like.....

Virginia Van Upp!  Child actress, turned scenarist, turned ace screenplay writer, and finally one of the only women executives of her time in Hollywood.  She held the #2 spot at Columbia when Harry Cohn made her Head Executive Producer.

For all her extraordinary accomplishments, I am most thankful to her for presenting us with the most smoldering dame of all time:

Gilda "If I'd been a ranch, they would have called me the Bar Nothing" Mundson Farrell!

Hayworth and Ford loving their work.



BTS of Hayworth, Ford and Van Upp.



A Take Charge Girl

Legendary director William Wyler being led through the Columbia backlot by actress Barbra Streisand, 1968

Just Another Friday In My Neighborhood.

Ok, I'll be the first one to admit that living in Hollywood is often...different than life in other places.  I have examples of this:

Example A.  One day, while driving down Santa Monica Blvd., approaching Highland Ave., ahead of me I spied what appeared to be road kill.  Some poor squirrel, possum or cat had met an untimely fate.  It wasn't until I was practically upon it that I was able to discern -- it was a wig.

Alright, maybe that wasn't a definitive example, but it was funny.

Example B.  Until as recently as a couple of weeks ago when they were banned for unsavory behavior, it was a constant fixture here in Hollywood to see men and women dressed in character trolling the sidewalk in front of the Kodak and Chinese Theaters posing in photographs with tourists for the consideration of cash tips.  Therefore, I was never surprised to see Charlie Chaplin or Captain Jack Sparrow or Wonder Woman strolling up Vine St. at around 9 am in the mornings, wearing their ipods and carrying their Starbucks coffee on their way to 'work'.

This brings us to Friday.  In the morning I ran over to the historic Farmers Market to hang out with some friends over coffee and fresh danish.  I needed to be back home by 11:30.  My dear friend of nearly 30 years, George, is visiting from DC and I was taking him for a tour of The Sunset Gower Lot (the original Columbia studios).  At the market, I asked my friend Travis if he would like to come over to the house and meet George and he said he'd love to.  So in true LA fashion, by 11:15 there were three of us all headed to my house; in three separate cars.  I arrived first to discover this parked in front of my house:

Just kidding.  It was this:

Still kidding.  It was this:

Not kidding.

 A 1911 Willys-Overland!

As I was going sightseeing, I had my camera in my bag and started snapping pictures.

By now, both George and Travis had arrived.  I made a hasty and distracted introduction and soon they had there iphones out, taking pictures.  People walking down the street had stopped and there was now a small crowd gathered, taking in the magnificence of this antique beauty.  I ran to my next door neighbors house to tell him about it, and it turns out he had a visitor who was the owner of the car.  It also turns out that this is one in a collection of 11 classic autos the man owns!  It further turns out that he was nice enough to offer to take a picture of me sitting in the car!

Me, pretending to drive the 1911 Willys-Overland.

It was all very exciting and the three of us retired to the house for a much needed cup of coffee. 

Now if you think that arriving home to find a 1911 Willys-Overland parked in front of my house is the conclusion of my example on how life in Hollywood is different than other places that I've lived, hang on Bosco the story's not done yet.  Not...quite...yet.  About 10 minutes into our coffee, George looked out the window and exclaimed, "Jesus Christ, it's Mary Poppins!"  Cameras and iphones in hand, back outside we went.  An attractive English woman in, what appeared to be, her early forties who lives around the corner was walking by and spied the car.  Well knowing that she had just the outfit for the moment, and obviously not being a gal to turn down an opportunity, she ran home, changed clothes, grabbed a friend with a camera, came back, hunted down the cars owner and asked permission for an impromptu photo shoot, which was granted.

The rest of the day was spent with the usual, boring and mundane - looking at Harry Cohn's office and Rita Hayworth's dressing room...

Time For A Business Tip - From Harry Cohn

"Let me give you some facts of life. Every Friday, the front door of this studio opens and I spit a movie out onto Gower Street . . . If that door opens and I spit and nothing comes out, it means a lot of people are out of work--drivers, distributors, exhibitors, projectionists, ushers, and a lot of other pricks . . . I want one good picture a year, and I won't let an exhibitor have it unless he takes the bread-and-butter product, the Boston Blackies, the Blondies, the low-budget westerns and the rest of the junk we make."

 Harry Cohn, President, Columbia Pictures Corporation

Harry And The Lavender Blond.

For Harry Cohn it was a little embarrassing,  back in '48 he'd signed Marilyn for six months and she'd made "Ladies Of The Chorus".  Yeah, she'd bend over in his office to get the contract, but after the movie, she wouldn't spend the weekend on his yacht with him, so out she went.

Now five years later she was Miss-Big-Fuckin'-Movie-Star.  At Fox.  Oh sure he still had Rita, but you couldn't trust that broad.  She was always marrying the wrong men.  When he first found her she was married to a wrong guy.  When that ended there was that Welles schmuck.  Mister-Boy-Genius for crissake.  Now it's this big deal, Aly Kahn.  And when Hayworth is in love, movies can kiss her ass.

Well Harry didn't like not getting what he wanted, and he didn't like having Monroe egg on his face.  It was time to fix things.

The throne room at Columbia Pictures resounded with the whoosh of an outsized riding crop swung in anger. Scepter in hand, striding before two rows of Oscars at stiff attention behind his vast desk, Columbia's stubby and balding Boss Harry Cohn fumed with the king-sized wrath of the last Hollywood despot who still runs the studio he built. The year was 1953, the object of his wrath Rita Hayworth, Columbia's reigning love goddess; Rita had flounced out and left the studio with a costly stack of properties bought just for her. Before Cohn's desk, underlings watched the riding crop and awaited the great man's edict. If the studio only had another big female star, he grumbled, she could be used to bludgeon Hayworth into submission, or, if it came to that, to take over her roles in the scheduled pictures. Then Cohn announced his decree: "We will make a star."   -   Time Magazine Jul. 29, 1957

He already had her.  Marilyn Pauline Novak had already been screen tested and signed to a seven year contract.  Though she was Czech, Harry was addicted to the practice of referring to her as 'that fat Polack broad'.  She was a raw lump of clay for Harry to mold, his way.  Her biggest exposure to date had been a national tour as Miss Deep Freeze for Thor Freezers.  She needed to loose ten pounds and start wearing a bra for crissakes!  She would take acting lessons which, of course, would come out of her pocket.  And once she was renamed, plucked, groomed, dyed, made up and corseted, look out all you bastards at Fox.

Yeah, Harry was feeling much better already.  And once her star was launched and established, Harry, never one to pass credit around, said, "If you wanna bring me your wife or your aunt, we'll do the same for them."

But you know it's true, sometimes blonds do have more fun, or at least the last laugh.

 Novak at Harry Cohn's Funeral

on the Columbia lot, Mar. 2, 1958