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I wouldn’t swap those six for the whole careers of Marlon Brando and James Dean – My Blog

There’s a classic moment in the romantic thriller Charade, when Audrey Hepburn says to Cary Grant in exasperation, “Do you know what’s the matter with you? … Nothing.”

For decades, the whole world felt the same. Grant’s unrivaled blend of charm, good looks and silliness — he hadn’t a shred of pomposity or elitism — made him a movie star everyone loved. Everyone, that is, except Archie Leach, the actor’s real-life self who wrote that he’d spent years cautiously peering from behind the face of a man known as Cary Grant.
The journey from Archie to Cary is the subject of Mark Kidel’s enjoyable documentary, Becoming Cary Grant. Weaving together the actor’s private home movies, excerpts from his unpublished writings and terrific clips from his Hollywood work, this Showtime film tells the story of an arduous act of self-invention.Archie traveled with the company to New York, and when they went home, this dashing 18 year old stayed behind to work in vaudeville and in musical theater.
Despite a disastrously hammy first screen test — which Kidel shows us — he eventually found his way to Hollywood. There, a second screen test proved successful enough that he was ordered to change his name. He then became Cary Grant.

Even so, it took him several years and 28 movies until, in a brilliant screwball comedy called The Awful Truth, he discovered how to capture — and radiate — the ease that we think of as Cary Grant-ness. Once he did, he starred in some of the greatest movies ever, including Holiday, Only Angels Have Wings, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Notorious and North by Northwest. I wouldn’t swap those six for the whole careers of Marlon Brando and James Dean.
On screen, Grant always knew how to talk — and listen — to women. Off-screen, he messed up several marriages. Beneath his debonair facade, he was lonely, insecure and haunted by fears of being abandoned.
It wasn’t until his 50s that he began finding peace — when a doctor began giving him LSD. Taking a hundred trips, Grant confronted his past and learned how his mother’s abandonment had tainted his relationships with all women. He also began glimpsing a road to inner happiness. All of which makes Grant a better advertisement for dropping acid than anything Timothy Leary ever did.
Now, it’s not surprising that Grant was torn by personal wounds and a yearning for love. That’s common with stars. Even John Wayne spent his whole life trying, and failing, to win his mother’s affection. But Grant’s story is striking by the breadth of the chasm between his wounded inner self and his seductive persona that was attentive, buoyant and up for anything.
The best moments of Becoming Cary Grant show how the Archie-Cary duality gave him an enthralling elusiveness on-screen. He was a layered actor whose provenance was neither English nor American, whose light touch could veer into darkness and whose work, as critic David Thomson shrewdly tells Kidel, played with the ambiguities of gender. No male star of his stature ever donned so many women’s clothes.
In the end, Grant was and remains the supreme incarnation of what I always think of as “The Movies,” a vanished form of collective dream in which people went to the movie palace to sink into a world more glamorous and exciting than their own. In this world, artificial surfaces gave rise to genuine feelings, and stars taught you how to act with grace, style and high spirits.
Grant’s image was possibly the most glorious dream of them all, and as this documentary makes clear, he knew it. When an interviewer once told him, “Everyone would like to be Cary Grant,” he replied, “I’d like to be Cary Grant, too.”

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‘Black movie queen’ Maureen O’Hara – a close colleague of John Wayne passed away in front of the audience’s mourning. – My Blog

The star of the movie “Miracle on 34th Street”, a familiar co-star of actor John Wayne, has passed away due to old age and weakness. Maureen O’Hara, an Irish star, was once known as “the queen of movies. color”, died at his home in Boise, Idaho, USA, on October 24, at the age of 95.


The information was confirmed by Johnny Nicoletti, her long-time manager. “She passed away in the loving arms of her family, as well as on the soundtrack of the movie The Quiet Man that she loved so much,” one Maureen O’Hara’s relatives shared.

During her illustrious career, O’Hara had five times played the screen lover of actor John Wayne. She appeared in many classic Hollywood films, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), How Green Was My Valley (1941), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952). , Our Man in Havana (1959) and The Parent Trap (1961).

However, she never received an Oscar nomination. A year before Maureen O’Hara’s death, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to present her with an honorary Oscar for her service to Hollywood.

During the 1940s, when color film began to flourish, Maureen O’Hara appeared in a series of compelling works such as To the Shores of Tripoli (1942), The Black Swan (1942), The Spanish Main (1945). and The Quiet Man.

Possessing fair skin, red hair, as well as green eyes, she “shines like the sun on a silver screen,” as the New York Times described it. It was Dr. Herbert Kalmus, the inventor of color film, who gave Maureen O’Hara the nickname “color film queen”.

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The reason why John Wayne is labeled ‘Draft Dodger’ in Wor ւ ԁ War II . – My Blog

When actor John Wayne visited American soldiers in Vietnam in the summer of 1966, he was warmly welcomed. As he spoke to groups and individuals, he was presented gifts and letters from American and South Vietnamese troops alike. This was not the case during his USO tours in 1942 and ’43.According to author Garry Wills’ 1998 book, “John Wayne’ America: the Politics of Celebrity,” the actor received a chorus of boos when he walked onto the USO stages in Australia and the Pacific Islands. Those audiences were filled with combat veterans. Wayne, in his mid-30s, was not one of them.


Around the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Wayne was not the big-name actor we remember him being today. He was fresh off the box-office success of the 1939 film “Stagecoach.”Being drafted or enlisting was going to have a serious impact on his rising star. Depending on how long the ԝаr lasted, Wayne reportedly worried he might be too old to be a leading man when he came home.

Other actors, both well-established and rising in fame, rushed off to do their part. Clark Gable joined the Army Air Forces and, despite the studios’ efforts to get him into a motion picture unit, served as an aerial ɡսոոеr over Europe. Jimmy Stewart was initially ineligible for the draft, given his low weight, but like some amazing version of Captain America, he drank beer until he qualified.In his 2014 book, “American Titan: Searching for John Wayne,” author Marc Eliot alleges Wayne was having an affair with actress Marlene Dietrich. He says the possibility of losing this relationship was the real reason Wayne didn’t want to go to ԝаr.

But even Dietrich would do her part, smuggling Jewish people out of Europe, entertaining troops on the front lines (she crossed into Germany alongside Gen. George S. Patton) and maybe even being an operative for the Office of Strategic Services.Wayne never enlisted and even filed for a 3-A draft deferment, which meant that if the sole provider for a family of four were drafted, it would cause his family undue hardship. The closest he would ever come to Worւԁ Wаr II service would be portraying the actions of others on the silver screen.

With his leading man competition fighting the ԝаr and out of the way, Wayne became Hollywood’s top leading man. During the ԝаr, Wayne starred in a number of western films as well as Worւԁ Wаr II movies, including 1942’s “Flying Tigers” and 1944’s “The Fighting Seabees.” According to Eliot, Wayne told friends the best thing he could do for the ԝаr was make movies to support the troops. Eventually, the government agreed.

At one point during the ԝаr, the need for more men in uniform caused the U.S. military brass to change Wayne’s draft status to 1-A, fit for duty. But Hollywood studios intervened on his behalf, arguing that the actor’s star power was a boon for ԝаrtime propaganda and the morale of the troops. He was given a special 2-A status, which back then meant he was deferred in “support of national interest.”The decision not to serve or to avoid it entirely (depending on how you look at the actor) haunted Wayne for the rest of his life. His third wife, Pilar Wayne, says he became a “super-patriot for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying at home.”

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John Wayne Wanted to Make His Home Alarm a Hilarious Tape Recording of His Voice: ‘I See You, You Son of a B****’

John Wayne Wanted to Make His Home Alarm a Hilarious Tape Recording of His Voice: ‘I See You, You Son of a B****’

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