Joan Leslie: “At one point, I was beginning to look more like a secure, mature, American woman”
Former screen actress Joan Leslie, one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age and highly popular during the wartime years, passed away in Los Angeles at age 90 on October 12, 2015. I…
Marsha Hunt: “MGM let me play absolutely everything, the studio gave me such joy”
As a 17-year-old teenager, Marsha Hunt played her first leading role in her debut film, “The Virginia Judge” (1935), at Paramount, with Walter C. Kelly in the title role. By the time she was 20, sh…
Film director Jacques Feyder: Hollywood’s starmaker from—once again—Elsene, Brussels
European film directors at work in Hollywood silents, early 20th century. It was pretty common, and there were quite a bit of them who were lured to Southern California: they left their native (oft…
Ann Rutherford: “My golden years were platinum years”
It was wonderful to see how much former screen star Ann Rutherford, a.k.a. Polly Benedict in the much-beloved “Andy Hardy” series and familiar as Careen O’Hara, Scarlett’s younger sister in “Gone W…
Johnny Sheffield: “When one door closes, another door opens”
I don’t think anyone who watched Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan films while growing up didn’t envy Boy, a character introduced in “Tarzan Finds a Son!” (1939) when he was the sole survivor of a plane …
Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.: “My father had a tremendous love for movies”
Independent filmmaker and producer Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. passed away on January 9, 2015, in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, at age 88, of congestive heart failure. The son of Samuel Goldw…
Luise Rainer: “Whatever I was able to give or do in my work, came from inside out”
Screen legend Luise Rainer passed away on December 30, 2014, at her London home, at age 104, just two weeks shy of her 105th birthday. Unbelievable as it is, so was she. I met her twice for an inte…
Cora Sue Collins: “It’s fun to be a housewife from Phoenix”
In the 1930s, several child actors and actresses worked in Hollywood, including Jackie Cooper, Freddie Bartholomew, and Johnny Sheffield. At the same time, two of them, Shirley Temple and Jane With…
Evelyn Keyes: “The atmosphere on the set of ‘Gone With the Wind’ was almost partylike”
Screen star Evelyn Keyes was initially Vivien Leigh’s younger sister in “Gone With the Wind” (1939) before becaming a star in her own right in several films made at Columbia in the 1940s. When I me…
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