My Romance with Movies: October 2016

Friday, October 28

Farley Granger

Celebrity was an unfortunate circumstance of his profession. He spent too much of his time trying to avoid the glare. He loved acting and there is no question that movie cameras loved him. He never thought very much of his abilities as an actor and eschewed playing the Hollywood game. One could have suspected that maybe a handsome, single man who kept out of the limelight as much as possible was hiding his gayness. But Farley Granger wasn't hiding it at all.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer

It was an honor to have been on the MGM lot twice in the early 1960s. The first time I pleaded with a grandfatherly family friend to take me along on his business with the studio and the second time I had my own business to conduct when I went to a screening for a film I would be reviewing for my newspaper. I'd been in a couple of other studios before but nothing like this. It simply reeked of prestige.

No Sale: Girl Singers with Brief Movie Careers

As singers these four certainly hit the heights of fame with voices that soared on radio, with Big Bands, in supper clubs and concerts and certainly as popular recording artists. It seemed a natural path to make a stab as actresses and yet when these four did just that, Hollywood's attention was brief. One captured an Oscar nomination and another appeared in one of the most popular Christmas movies of all time and yet... no sale.