Doses of History

(Left) Olivia de Havilland in 1943, (right) Olivia in 2016, on her 100th birthday.  On July 1, 2017, Olivia de Havilland celebrated her 101st birthday. The actress, who retired back in the eighties and has lived in Paris, France, for over half a century, appeared in forty-nine films and was once of the most celebrated actresses of her time, most notably for her appearances in Gone With The Wind , To Each His Own and The Heiress , the former for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, while the later two she won.   And though her career in Hollywood ended a long, long time ago, Olivia de Havilland nevertheless remains today one of the last living legends of Classical Hollywood's Golden Age, having received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush and most recently, in June, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, all for her work in drama. And on June 30, on the eve of her 101st birt...

Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando taking a break from filming  A Streetcar Named Desire .  In honor of Sotheby's upcoming auction of more than 200 personal items from Vivien Leigh's estate in September in London, I thought I'd do a series of Vivien Leigh-focused posts over the next couple weeks. I must confess I don't know as much as I'd like to about her, so I've ordered a biography about her on Amazon which I intend to read shortly. Though she's most well-known for her role in Gone With The Wind , my personal favorite of her's is her role as the doomed Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire . Interestingly enough, the wig she wore for the role is part of the Sotheby's auction, which you can read about HERE . I'll definitely be getting myself a copy of the auction catalog. As a lover of Tennessee Williams and his most famous play, I equally love the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire  and especially Leigh and Brando's roles in i...

Geraldine Page as the famed actress Alexandra Del Lago in Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth Recently I was reading excerpts from the book Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh  by John Lahr, and I stumbled across some passages detailing actress Geraldine Page's involvement with one of Tennessee's most famous plays: Sweet Bird of Youth . As an avid fan of Tennessee Williams, Sweet Bird of Youth  AND Geraldine Page, I thought I'd dedicate a post to it. Geraldine Page, lovingly nicknamed Gerry by those who knew her, was no stranger to Tennessee Williams before her involvement in Sweet Bird . In 1952 she had starred in a revival of Williams' play Summer and Smoke , playing the lead role of Alma Winemiller so wonderfully, her performance was labelled legendary, and she reprised it again for a radio adaptation and the film version, which earned her an Academy Award nomination. It was with her brilliant performance as Alma in mind that Elia Kazan, d...

Joan Crawford wielding a mop across the sleek floor of the kitchen in her New York apartment. Circa 1959.  I'm just going to come out of the gate and say it: I don't like the movie  Mommie Dearest,  the movie that has, perhaps, become as iconic in pop culture as the woman it's about. Sure, it's entertaining - there's  definitely  no doubting that - and showcases some excellent acting on Faye Dunaway's part, but it also does an  immense  disservice to Joan Crawford. For the three people who don't know what the movie's about,  Mommie Dearest  tells the story of Joan Crawford beginning with the adoption of her first child, Christina. Originally a book written by Christina herself, and  then  turned into the movie that is so well-known, it alleges that Joan was an abusive, manipulative and self-centered mother, capable of loving no one except for herself, who deprived her children of affection, treated them like filth and suff...