A Mother’s Dedication

I’m sure dedicating your first novel to your Mother is probably not that unusual. My debut novel, LOOKING FOR GARBO (Amphorae Publishing Group) is no different. The fact my Mom will have been gone 35 years ago this June is maybe less common, I hope. I finally had the chance to begin scanning family photos that have been passed down to me. My favorites are of my Mom and Dad when they were first engaged, then married and on their honeymoon. What a stylish shirt my Mom had on in this shot. I think she’s either 23 or 24 years old here and I love her short haircut.

What a beautiful young couple my Mom and Dad are here. They are obviously in love. Dad is looking sharp in tie and suspenders, and Mom is effortlessly elegant in what I can only assume is a black dress. As the story goes, they met as teenagers at a party, then didn’t see each other again until their paths crossed years later on a New York City street corner. I always liked that story of serendipity – destined to find each other again.

Mom and Dad look even younger here, sitting in front of Mom’s parents, Howard and Alva, and my Dad’s Mom, a widower since my Dad was a young boy. It’s a great Christmas holiday portrait, and I smile every time I look at the young couple, all full of promise and at the very start of their journey together. I’m so glad this photo survived.

A truly great candid of my parents. I often wonder who took the picture. It seems to me to have been a good friend of theirs. Mom’s easy, relaxed smile and Dad’s boyish grin make me think they were having a night on the town with another couple. It’s also nice to pick out the details of the cars and the wrought iron city street lamp behind them.

Mom and Dad’s wedding reception: That’s my Uncle John on the left watching his brother and brand new sister-in-law cut the cake. I particularly like Mom’s grey (or is blue?) suit. It was a tiny affair but by the look on my Dad’s face – he’s as happy as can be married to his love. I love the bowtie Uncle John is sporting, and the table dressing is classic.

Here’s another shot of Mom and Dad entering (or leaving) the service where they were married. They look like a sophisticated, up and coming couple to me here. I love the veil Mom is wearing and the somewhat fuzzy-focused motion to them. It’s a great candid and so interesting to see the difference a black & white shot can make, compared to the technicolor of the one above.

Here they are on their honeymoon. They look like kids again, especially Mom in her shorts, white socks and red shoes. This was after a sport fishing trip in which Dad caught a marlin that he had stuffed and hung on the wall above our living room couch for years. It’s a great, casual shot of them in the prime of their lives. I also love the sign telling you where they are.

This is one of my all-time favorite shots of my parents. They always had great fashion sense, and I remember my Mom in this dress, going out for a night on the town while us kids stayed home and watched Star Trek reruns. We lived on Mayflower Court, which had a cul-de-sac and all the neighbor’s parents got together a couple times a year and gallivanted from house to house eating and drinking. The social group was called the Good Timers, and I can remember all the great food Mom prepared for the event.

This last one is of Mom before she got sick. Mom, my older brother Tom and I are touring something akin to Colonial Williamsburgh, though I can’t remember exactly now. Mom was fiercely intelligent (having skipped several grades) and was a voracious reader. But I’ll remember her laugh and sense of humor the most. I’ll also never forget the fact that she wanted the best for all her four boys (easier than having daughters, she’d say) and wanted us to pursue our dreams no matter how impossible they might seem.

One of my dreams just came true this past Tuesday, when my debut novel was published. I finally got to publicly thank my Mom for all the love and support she gave me during her short life. I think she would have liked the story, too. The one she inspired a long time ago.

Garbo: Oscar-Winning Real Life Heroine

Greta Garbo is considered the Queen of the Hollywood Golden Age, from her silent films to her sound film classics. She was nominated four times for an Oscar for Best Actress award: In 1929, Garbo received two nominations for films Anne Christie and Romance, losing to Norma Shearer in the Oscar’s inaugural year. Then again for Camille in 1937, and finally Ninotchka in 1939. She would later receive an honorary Oscar in 1955, at the 27^th Academy Awards (of course, which she refused to attend) for her “luminous and unforgettable screen performances.”

Garbo was the biggest star in Hollywood in 1939. Her Oscar-nominated star turn in comedy Ninotchka with the tag-line GARBO LAUGHS was atop a crowded box office landscape in a year that would see film classics Gone with The Wind, Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the Wizard of Oz in their first run glory. But it was an off-screen role Garbo was preparing for that might be considered the greatest role of her lifetime.

It’s almost hard to comprehend being on the brink of world war today – but the average American citizen, circa 1939 had a lot of things on her mind. And if you happened to be the greatest movie star ever to grace the earth, the one the Guinness Book of World Records declared the most “beautiful woman that ever lived”  – you were apparently thinking of assassination in 1939. Not only thinking about it but preparing for it with the help of a foreign spy agency.

It was all part of a secret plot to do nothing short of save the planet from another devastating world war. Of intelligence officers from the British MI6 instructing the consummate actress in how to prepare to do the unthinkable: to shoot a man in cold blood. A man who was arguably your biggest fan. A man who wrote you fan letters begging you to be his country’s Aryan Goddess. Become the woman who would embody the epitome of his master race.

Adolf Hitler was goofy over Garbo. He obsessed over the black and white image of her dying in Camille. Watched her die over and over again in his own private screening room every night. It was true, no one died like Garbo. In the final moments of portraying the famous Camille the Parisian Courtesan, Hitler watched Garbo cross over from life into afterlife. Fascinated with the Occult, Hitler fantasized her a goddess come to life, only to die on screen for the world’s sins. He wanted to gaze upon her close up and in color. So much so that Hitler formally invited her to come to Nazi Germany under the grandest of circumstances.

But Garbo would have none of it. If she agreed to come, it would be under cover, and on orders of her spy handlers at MI6. Her cover story would be supplied by another undercover agent working for the Allied cause, Hungarian-born British producer Alexander Korda. Garbo and Korda had worked together several times during WWII. He had introduced her to William Stephenson, aka Intrepid, the British secret agency’s senior representative for the entire Western world during the war. Intrepid was thought to be the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s master spy: James Bond. And he would help Garbo prepare for the “Big One” – the plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Ideally, Garbo would travel to Germany, meet with Heir Hitler, and murder him before the war even began. Garbo later told her close friend Sam Green: “Mr Hitler was big on me. He kept writing and inviting me to come to Germany, and if the war hadn’t started when it did I would have gone and I would have taken a gun out of my purse and shot him because I’m the only person who would not have been searched.”

Garbo planned her trip to England (enroute to Nazi Germany) under the guise of shooting a feature film about one of her personal favorite heroines. With the help of Hedda Hopper, the biggest gossip columnist of 1939, a snippet from her popular Los Angeles Times column declared: “Great Garbo has finally got the role she’s been waiting for. She’ll sail sometime in September (1939) for England to play Joan of Arc in George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan under the direction of Clarence Brown.”

Sure enough, the British Press picked up and published the ruse, complete with the film to be produced by Rank at Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire – 17 miles outside London, England.

The war in Europe began on September 3^, 1939. But what if Garbo had embarked on her journey, on the eve of World War II? Made her way via ocean liner to a fateful meeting with the madman of Europe. Even to save the world, would the most glamorous movie star in the world have been able to take a gun out of her purse and pulled the trigger. Killed Hitler in cold blood? Play the heroine, like she did in Mata Hari, and Queen Christina for real? And what would the world look like today if she had succeeded?

Order Looking For Garbo: A Novel (Amphorae Publishing) coming on May 7 and find out what might have happened on Garbo’s fateful trip into history:

 

Blondie: Rock Goddess with a Heart of Glass

Debbie Harry was one of my first crushes. A beautiful and talented rock goddess who was essentially a supermodel when she hit the stateside music scene in 1977 with her band, Blondie.

My older brother had a poster of Debbie up in his room but I never made the connection of who she was until I heard “Hearts Of Glass”, the band’s first hit single in 1977. Debbie was not just a pretty face, but a full-throated lead singer about to explode.

I wasn’t old enough to go to any of her concerts over the next several years as she dominated the airwaves with singles “Call Me”, “Atomic”, and the aforementioned “Hearts of Glass.” But thanks to MTV, I got to marvel at how beautiful and artistic she was live on stage, in music videos and movie cameos.

Debbie had a raw, fearless sexuality on stage. She wasn’t afraid to do anything her creative urges told her to do. She was about as glamorous as it got back in the early 80’s before big hair, stone-washed jeans and shoulder-pads began to cover the landscape.

Debbie had a style all her own. Of course, she would eventually succumb to the big hair phenomenon like everyone else. But she did it while retaining her own style. One that no one else could quite pull off.

Blondie broke up in 1982 (they would get back together off and on over the years) and Debbie would pursue a solo career with success. I always found her fascinating to watch and would now and again check in with her career over the years.

What I find fascinating now that I’m older, is how you become so nostalgic for the interests of your youth. Some fade and become idle curiosities – namely, why did I ever like so-and-so in the first place. But that has never been the case with Debbie. I’m still as fascinated by her today as I was way back when. A true sign of a class act if ever there was one.

I think the reason Debbie Harry has retained her mystic over the years is because she never followed trends. She was a true original back when that not only was tolerated in the music industry, but lauded. Her fan base was broad and she had fans young and old, not just because of her music but also her beauty and screen presence.

And like every other aging fanboy, the older I get I inevitably delve deeper into the past looking for connections to it. Debbie is no exception. I’ve only recently found out that before her musical career, she was a model and, incredibly, a playboy bunny at one point. Interesting how her photos are so tame compared to today. I love their artistic aesthetic, in addition to Debbie’s raw beauty.

Debbie is still fearless today, posing topless. She is still a very hot momma, in my humble opinion.

It’s a testament to Debbie’s artistic leanings that none of these images are gratuitous. They all have some intrinsic value in addition to capturing Debbie’s physical beauty back when she was truly in her rock goddess prime.

Debbie has always been a flirt both on and off stage, as evidenced by this great candid below. Proving that blondes do have more fun.

I’ll always love this Blonde bombshell. The Rock Goddess with a Heart of Glass captured mine a long, long time ago.

She survived disco, after all, coming through it unscathed. No easy task for a time when so many lost their artistic souls.

This is how I’ll always remember Blondie when I first met her, up on my brother’s wall…

And this is how the Rock Goddess looks today: formidable while still beautiful, and ready to kick some ass!

Hedy Lamarr: Smoking Hot Genius

Why the story of Hedy Lamarr hasn’t been made into a movie yet I’ll never understand. She was one of the most beautiful movie stars to ever grace the silver screen. But beyond her obvious attributes, Hedy was a bonafide genius. Hers was a classic case of beauty and brains taken to the extreme. And maybe because of the fact she was so beautiful, her academic achievements would never be taken seriously. Not until over 40 years later, at least.

Born Hedwig Kiesler, Hedy grew up in Vienna as an Austrian Banker’s unorthodox daughter. A self-described enfant terrible, Hedy gained notoriety while still a teenager for running through the woods naked in the Czech film “Ecstacy”.

Shorty afterwards, Hedy married wealthy arms merchant Fritz Mandl, a Hitler admirer. She accompanied Mandl to business and political dinners, quietly listening while her husband and his Nazi friends plotted advanced weaponry for the coming war.

Hedy managed a daring escape from the marriage by drugging a maid ordered to keep tabs on her. She fled to England, taking with her all the knowledge and information her Nazi-sympathizer husband has unwittingly exposed her to. Information that would be of incredible value to the Allies in a few years.

In London, Hedy met film mogul Louis B. Mayer. Mayer took one look at the natural beauty and shipped her to Hollywood and promptly rechristened her Hedy Lamarr.

A self-taught mathematical genius, the 26-year old Hedy created “frequency-hopping” or “spread-spectrum” technology. She applied her theory to radio-controlled torpedoes, to sink Nazi ships without having their frequency being jammed by the enemy. Lamarr won a patent for her secret communication system. But it wasn’t until 1962, 20 years later, that the Navy would incorporate it into their torpedo guidance systems in time for the Cuban Missile Crisis.

During WWII, Hedy was urged not to pursue the inventor’s route, but instead to help fight the war by selling war bonds as a glamorous actress, which she did. In one evening alone, Hedy sold over $7 million worth of bonds by selling kisses for $50,000 each! A record that has never been broken since.

Hedy never received a penny for her ground-breaking spread-spectrum technology. Her patent expired in 1959, but it is being used today in everything from cellular phones, to military defense satellites. Hedy was finally honored for services rendered during WWII by the Electric Frontier Foundation, among other honors. But it was scant recognition for technology that would eventually become the foundation for a trillion-dollar business.

Living in Florida shortly before her death at 84, the former movie goddess and mathematical genius had a tough time making ends meet. But ever the Lady, when asked about her new-found fame surrounding her invention, Hedy simply replied, “It’s about time.”

Hedy Lamarr’s true-life story is more fascinating to me than any she ever portrayed on screen. In the 1940’s and 50’s her star was among the brightest in the Hollywood Universe, with films like WHITE CARGO, ALGIERS and SAMSON & DELILAH rocketing her to fame. But watching the sex-kitten roles today gives me a slow burn, knowing tinseltown considered this beautiful woman better without a brain. One that could create technology out of a need to rid the world of Nazis but would end up having much farther reaching effects to this very day.

I’m hoping some day in the near future, Hollywood will finally get it right and do justice to this golden age movie goddess by telling her story on the silver screen. Hedy’s is truly an original tale and the most unique and unlikely comeback story in virtually all of Hollywood history. You’d think they’d be interested in something like that. Even if it does make them look foolish.

To Hedy Lamarr, the ultimate Beauty with Brains!

Hedy in her hey-day.

One of my favorite glamour shots of the brunette beauty.

Hedy smoking-hot in her screen debut in Czech silent “Ecstacy”.

A rare nude of the young movie goddess.

An even rarer shot of Hedy smiling for the cameras.

 

Mia Farrow: More Than The Sum of Her Parts

For those of you who have never seen it, tis’ the season to rent Rosemary’s Baby (1968). The titular horror movie of the late 60’s holds up better than almost any horror movie of it’s time, aside from Psycho (1960) of course. And the biggest and best reason for this is the singular, star-making performance of Roman Polanski’s leading lady – the lovely doe-eyed Mia Farrow. Long before Woody Allen, Mia was Mrs. Frank Sinatra, a TV star of Peyton Place and a relative unknown to movie audiences. But that was all about to change in the blink of a devil-baby’s eye.

I rented Rosemary’s Baby again after having not seen the movie in over ten years. Quaint by today’s extreme horror movie standards, the film has nonetheless retained its slow-boil tension up to the still terrifying reveal (I’m not going to spoil the ending but it’s pretty hard not to figure it out early on). But aside from the sheer craft of Polanski’s horror-show is the real reason to watch a movie that is over 47-years old: The beautiful Mia Farrow. This is an actress in a role that allows her to use every ounce of her formidable talent, spirit and energy. She is so compelling, so convincing and so apparently vulnerable that she draws the audience in with every fiber of her being.

Mia’s greatest feature (in my humble opinion) are her eyes. She has these large, gumball-sized blue eyes that are made all the larger by her famous, fashion-statement on steroids Pixie cut. Ms. Farrow recent corrected the historians who attributed the iconic cut to Vidal Sassoon (Mia’s character even attributes the cut to him in the movie). However, it was Farrow herself that cut her own hair within-an-inch of its life and caught the attention of the world with its fashion-forward playfulness. Granted, Mia’s bone-structure and light features make her face glow to begin with but add the Pixie cut and her face and EYES are the main attraction in Rosemary’s Baby.

The duality of Mia’s persona in the film is that a woman who looks so frail, so frightened can be so strong. She is all of 23 in the movie and her face literally glows (with youthfulness, and then illness as the movie progresses thanks to white make-up that Polanski had her wear to give her a sickly pallor). The young actress was famously married to Frank Sinatra at the time she took the role. He didn’t want her to do the movie and it’s a credit to Mia that she told her old man to go to hell. The subsequent divorce made the way for Mia to become a major star in her own right and no longer hidden in the shadow of the Chairman of the Board.

Mia went on to become as big a fashion icon as she was a movie star. Like Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark before her – the hidden strength of her character shown through in her movie persona – a perfect meld that stands the test of time even as most movies of the 60’s appear so dated because of the fashion, music and style of the times. Mia’s personality is of the 60’s but transcends the time period because of the allegory inherent in Rosemary’s Baby; that of a young mother fearing for the safety of her unborn child as well as her own – surrounded by evil in a world gone mad. Maybe that’s why it resonates so well today.

This Halloween, treat yourself and the kids with this amazing, elevated horror movie. The thrills and chills are tame next to today’s average video-game let alone horror movie. And be warned, there is some nudity (albeit of a beautiful young woman in her absolute prime). But if you want to be spellbound by one of the most amazing screen performances ever captured, mesmerized by a woman who is more than the sum of her (movie) parts before or since – watch Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby.

Even before the climax at the end, you’ll know why the devil just couldn’t keep his claws off Mia with those deep, giant blue eyes of hers.

Sophia Loren: Dangerous Curves

Sophia Loren is one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen.

Her exotic looks are all natural and she was happy to share them with the world.

An exotic import, Sophia has a larger than life persona that she flaunted to maximum effect.

But what I love her for is her class mixed with sex appeal, able to play one off the other.

Even when lampooning her own public image, Sophia did it with grace.

I especially like this shot of her. So stunning!

And this one. How she could turn a corny glamor shoot into art I’ll never know.

But even dressed down and wind-swept she was beautiful!

Happy Birthday, Sophia! And many more…

Marlene Dietrich: My Blue Angel

Marlene was the first to admit that her onscreen image was a creation of her own and that of director Josef von Sternberg. Imported by Paramount Pictures in 1930 (the execs wanted their own Garbo to make MGM sweat a little at the box office), Marlene had made The Blue Angel in English as well as German to capitalize on the scandalous subject matter. But it was Marlene’s androgynous appeal to women as well as men that made her a huge crossover star in America. Arguably, the German-born actress was as beautiful as goddess Garbo with one distinct difference. Marlene’s sex appeal was derived from her self-effacing sense of humor. If Garbo’s love was tragic – Dietrich’s love was sardonic.

Marlene called herself the “ersatz-Garbo”. She didn’t like being compared to the Swedish Sphinx and her film roles reflected that fact. Plus, Marlene was more than just a movie goddess: she could sing and dance with the best of them. When she arrived in Hollywood the studio tried to make her sign a morality clause in her contract. America was coming off the hangover of Prohibition and Hollywood didn’t want their stars private lives to overshadow their on-screen creations. No doubt Marlene’s proclivity for bedding as many women as men (she traveled with her lover as well as her broad-thinking husband) gave the studio suits fits of worry and they thought they could control her with money.  Little did they know how smart and strong Marlene could be.

Marlene may have been a creation of her favorite director/collaborator von Sternberg, but when it came to her career she took no chances. As soon as she could, she assumed control of her movies by becoming one of the first female producers in Hollywood. Now she had a say both on camera and off about the script, costumes, locations and, most importantly, what the censors cut and what she fought to keep in her films. In 1934, the tide changed in Hollywood and the code came into full effect. Only stars of Marlene and Garbo’s stature could fight for the best roles – often times their own studio bosses would try and tame them, watering down the storylines until there was little or no value left in them. Garbo would ultimately throw in the towel and retire in 1941. But Marlene’s star would rise even higher in the wasteland of World War II.

Dietrich was as strong as she was beautiful. When Hitler commanded her to return to Germany at the outbreak of hostilities – Marlene not only told him where to get off, she did everything in her power to aide the Allies. She was a fixture of War Bond fundraisers overseas. She entertained the troops at USO shows with song and dance (her fabulous legs were insured for a million dollars) and spoke passionately about democracy and her love for America, her adopted country). Marlene truly came into her own during and after the war – and her fans loved her all the more for it. She was like a blonde Venus rising from the catastrophic aftermath of her birth countries bid to rule the world. And she was a shining example of a woman who fought for freedom as hard as any man – and won on her own terms.

What Marlene lacked in Garbo’s perfect facial features she more than made up for in exquisite make-up effects.

She liked to say “The Blue Angel” was her first film, even though in reality it was her sixteenth!

Deborah Kerr: Eternal Beauty

Deborah Kerr was a mighty star known for her ladylike composure and beautiful, delicate features. The late 1940’s and 50’s saw her playing refined characters like Sister Clodagh in Black Narcissus (1947) and Princess Flavia in The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) among many others. But times were changing and Kerr, the Scottish born beauty whose mother made her lie on the floor for hours on end to make sure her back had “perfect posture” – found that her public persona was threatening to make her Hollywood career short-lived.

Deborah knew she needed a drastic change and in 1952 it came. She went up for the role of Karen Holmes in “From Here to Eternity” (1953) the film adaptation of the famous James Jones novel depicting military life in Hawaii on the eve of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.  Kerr was up against Joan Crawford, who infamously demanded her own director of photography for the role. The studio balked and Kerr was given the role of an unhappily married military wife who falls for the charms of Burt Lancaster.

Kerr said the famous beach love scene with Burt was torturous. They had to wait for the perfect wave to wash over them while they made out. Trouble was you never knew when the perfect wave was coming and they had to do the scene over and over and over again. By the end of the shoot, Kerr said she and Lancaster had sand everywhere – in their mouths and “in other places, too.” The gamble to her career worked like wildfire. The sexy new Kerr was suddenly the talk of Hollywood, opening up roles for her that she would never have gotten before.

Of course, the two most famous roles were to come for Kerr: “The King and I” (1956) and “An Affair to Remember” (1957) with Yul Brenner and Cary Grant, respectively. Kerr was magical in both and beautiful beyond measure. She was also newly confident and reassured in her roles. The famously shy actress was nominated for six Oscars – but never won until given an honorary statuette in 1994.

Kerr quit movies and television altogether in 1986. She said it was because she was shocked and disgusted by all the sex and violence in movies and TV. And this was 1986! The graceful and elegant Kerr had a great sense of humor and a sensuality that many of her co-stars and fans remember of her.  She once said in an interview that when she kissed Cary Grant in “An Affair to Remember” that she really was in love with him. The fact, she says, that they weren’t trying to swallow each other – didn’t make their kissing sessions any less passionate.

I’m grateful that “From Here to Eternity” came along and the perfect time to bring Kerr out of her shell. If not, then we may never have seen a deeper, more intense and passionate side of the Scottish actress – a side that made her fans and future generations realize that you can be graceful, refined, sensual and sexy all at the same time. Kerr embodied her characters in a way that has made her a favorite even today. That kind of timeless quality is rare and Kerr will always be remembered for being as beautiful in a full-length gown dancing and singing with Yul Brenner as she was in a bikini on the beach smooching Burt Lancaster. And that, as they say, is real range.

A rare unpublished portrait of Kerr as beautiful as any supermodel today.

Jean Harlow: Original Blonde Bombshell

The story of Jean Harlow is inescapably intermingled with Hollywood legend.  The story goes like this: Harlean (her real first name) was accompanying a friend to central casting when studio executives became interested in her instead. She put them off, only to return to central casting several days later on a friendly bet and was hired to play bit parts for Hal Roach, then Howard Hughes and finally Irving Thalberg at MGM where she became an “overnight” sensation and massive superstar at the tender age of 20.

The world’s first “platinum blonde” couldn’t get a break, either from real life or the critics that panned her acting ability in the early years of her career. Jean (she borrowed her mother’s name for the silver screen) seemed always ill regardless of the radiant presence she had on film. She was married three times, most notoriously to Paul Bern, an MGM producer who was found shot-dead in their Hollywood home when Jean was only 21. The resulting scandal (his death was officially a suicide) made Jean even more popular with her adoring fans. Her true love was fellow movie star William Powell but the two never married.

On screen, Jean was glamorous, sexy and most of all funny. Her comedic timing and attitude were a goldmine to MGM and she single-handedly kept the studio out of bankruptcy in the early 1930’s. Jean played opposite Clarke Gable six times. My favorites are Red-Headed Woman and Hold Your Man. She played opposite a fetus-young Jimmy Stewart in Wife Vs. Secretary, whose concept is so dated that it’s impossible to like the movie even though it features one of my all-time favorite actresses – the imitable Myrna Loy.

Jean was only 26 when she became dreadfully ill on the set of Saratoga. A victim of medical malpractice, Jean was misdiagnosed several times and suffered horribly before succumbing to kidney failure. Her grieving fans were outraged when MGM studios tried to replace her with another actress to complete her last film Saratoga. Instead, they hired several body doubles to be shot from behind and even an actress to mimic Jean’s voice to complete the film “starring” Jean Harlow. Ironically, the critics have labeled it her finest work.

Jean was supposed to be MGM’s next Greta Garbo but she didn’t live long enough to inherit Garbo’s throne. She was a funny, spirited personality more than an actress. Her legacy is her films opposite Gable and the indelible impression she made on depression-era America. She never took herself or the industry that made her famous too seriously. She died way too young, which made her a Hollywood legend and a legacy that wouldn’t be seen again until another tragic blonde came along to fill her shoes…her names was Jean, too. Norma Jean aka Marilyn Monroe.

Who is this Famous Movie/TV Star?

Any ideas? Why, of course it’s the one and only Donna Reed! Many of you probably didn’t recognize her by this early glamor shot. Still more because, well, you don’t remember this beauty like I do. Her best remembered role is as Jimmy Stewart’s sweetheart-cum-wife from It’s A Wonderful Life. This holiday classic is one of my favorite films and has one of the best all-time movie lines in it – uttered by Miss Reed herself:

“He’s making violent love to me, Mother!”

Awesome. It doesn’t get better than that. You bet it does with Donna Reed scamping around in the bushes of Bedford Falls naked and Jimmy S. lassoing the moon for her. I hope you know what I’m talking about because this is really a phenomenal movie that no one should miss. Donna was a big star after this and several other movie roles that I can’t remember. She even got her own TV show – The Donna Reed Show.

Donna is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen on the silver screen. Wholesome, bright and not above being a serious flirt – she was an amazing talent who never really got a chance to shine the way I think she could of. Maybe the movie roles just never came. Maybe her friendly, approachable good looks were more conducive to the silver screen (ironically, how most everyone of later generations would come to know her – from a gazillion It’s A Wonderful Life reruns – I wonder, is that movie public domain?).

Check out Donna’s work on Netflix when you get a chance. She’ll make you smile and remind you of that girl next door that you had a crush on, then moved away. Or, the cheerleader in High School that was always so popular yet still deigned to talk to you. Most of all, she was the older sister of your best friend that you could rip your eyes off of every time you went over to his house on Mac and Cheese night.

I wish.

Is it too soon to watch It’s A Wonderful Life again?