SOME FAVORITE RANDOM SHOTS FROM OLD HOLLYWOOD

young Barbara Stanwyck with Theresa Harris (a Hollywood actress who should have been the first great African-American movie star, and Oscar winner, but unfortunately due to Hollywood moguls' fears of Southern white audience's racism—as well as in the North, but not as virulent or legally supported—she usually played maids etc. but in BABY FACE—above—her character worked for Stanwyk's character yet was treated like a friend and was equally as beautifully shot)

Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen (the original)

Dorothy McGuire and Bogie (from THE BIG SLEEP)

Gable and his wife Carole Lombard at home (not long before she died in an airplane crash)

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift at the height of their beauty (on the MGM lot, where I worked a few decades later and felt the presence of all that amazing history)

Sophia Loren checking out the competition, Jayne Mansfield

Another shot of Taylor and Clift, what style

a young (and happy) Rita Hayworth with Fred Astaire

James Stewart, Grace Kelly and Alfred Hitchcock (on the set of my favorite Hitchcock movie, REAR WINDOW)

Katy Jurado reprimanding a wandering eyed Marlon Brando

Maureen O'Hara looking stunned and happy taking the hand of Dorothy Dandridge (the first female African-American movie star, I had crushes on both of them as a boy, don't know who the guy is)

Robert Redford and Natalie Wood looking like movie stars

Nick Adams playing the beard for Natalie Wood and Elvis

Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole (both Hollywood stars in their own ways, but this is probably from his TV show which was viciously attacked—and lacked sponsors—because he did duets with white women)

John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara (from THE QUIET MAN, one of my all-time favorite flicks despite it's hokey take on the Irish and it's inherent sexism)

Bogie and Martha Vickers (one of my favorite and underrated Hollywood actresses, who should have won an Oscar for her performance in THE BIG SLEEP, above)

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake (from their first flick together, THIS GUN FOR HIRE—my favorite movie stars when I was five)

Kim Novak and Alfred Hitchcock (and no idea why it's not centered like the rest)

Robert Mitchum and Jeanne Simmons (talk about stylish)

Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer (her character in this flick, OUT OF THE PAST, is my favorite "bad girl" character in all of Hollywood history) 

Jane Greer again in OUT OF THE PAST with Robert Mitchum

Greer in glamorous bad girl pose from a scene in OUT OF THE PAST

Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones and their kids (thanks to JenW who emailed me this photo, pointing out that it's the happiest Jones ever looked)

Sylvia Sydney and the young Henry Fonda (her early years as a top star and beauty seemed to get erased as she aged and played older characters, and she now seems forgotten, unfortunately, because she was one of the first Hollywood stars to portray ordinary women realistically)

Astaire and Rogers, Fred and Ginger, perfect

made in Paris (LAST TANGO IN...) but with the Hollywood icon Brando in his comeback role (along with THE GODFATHER) with my favorite director at the time, Bernardo Bertolucci, and co-star Maria Schneider

Elizabeth Taylor (seemingly proving that the hype about how Hollywood beauties got their tiny waists, i.e. depending on elaborate corsets etc., wasn't true in her case)

Irene Dunne (my mother's—Irene Dempsey's—favorite actress) and Cary Grant (talk about stylish)

Burt Lancaster (wanted to be like him when I was hitting puberty)

Bogie and Bacall (oh what a crush as a kid I had on her, then met her much later in her life and unfortunately it wasn't a great experience, but as I got older retrospectively attributed it to her being a star at a social gathering and being older etc.)

Sinatra and Gardner, Frankie and Ava (both looking uncharacteristically innocent)

Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones (in the much maligned DUEL IN THE SUN, where she plays the much retrospectively criticized—as politically incorrect casting—"Indian"—more like a cliched Hollywood Gypsy—but to my mind does the emotions called for perfectly) 

Brando, James Garner and Dianne Carroll (at the 1963 Civil Rights DC demonstration)

Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis (met her when she was older and still beautiful, they were the hot couple of my early teens)

Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra (don't know who the mogul is)

Marilyn and an anonymous soldier (at a USO show in Korea)

Linda Darnell (a great Hollywood star and actress when I was a boy, now seemingly forgotten)