A LITTLE DIVERSION

I had the great luck of getting to work on Hollywood studio sound stages and back lots where some of my favorite stars acted out some of my favorite scenes. I worked on these lots mostly in movies but in TV shows too, including the only one I was a regular on but only lasted one season so never got syndicated and seems to have disappeared completely, BERENGERS. It was set in a department store that was inside a soundstage on the MGM lot before Sony took it over. What a thrill for a kid who grew up on old Hollywood flicks. Here's Taylor and Clift on the same lot I worked on outside a soundstage two decades before I got there:

I thought I'd post some photos of some old Hollywood studio sets that I dig. This one from REAR WINDOW is maybe my all time favorite Hollywood set:

Here's Joan Blondell, one of my alltime favorite movie actors, on a 1930s art deco office set, one of my favorite periods for sets:

And another favorite movie actress, Jane Greer, on the set of one of my alltime favorite films OUT OF THE PAST, a great example of the film noir studio sets I loved, mostly because of the lighting:

And an example from one of the best classic film noirs THE BIG SLEEP, the "big house" (as in mansion not prison) entrance way, totally convincing in the movie, with another of my favorite film actresses the much underrated and mostly forgotten Martha Vickers, who almost stole the movie from Bogie and Bacall: