#hollywood history

[citizenscreen]

The Goldwyn Studios sign (with Logo later used by MGM) on the roof of Samuel Goldwyn's studio in Culver City in 1921.

[classicfilmloves]

Eartha Kitt photographed by Harry Benson 1965

[koenji]

We live from day to day and get as much joy out of experiencing as we can. - Shelly Duvall.

Shelley Duvall and Patrick Reynolds in a photo booth. R.I.P. Shelley🕯️

[nickysfacts]

She got to be the voice of a icon, but sadly paid heavily for it👑

🎶🎞️🎶

[kosher-toasty]

Really need some Jewish joy at the moment so I'm gonna infodump about one of my favorite Jewish Hollywood icons, Steven Hill.

(photo credit: Wikipedia)

Look at him. Gaze upon this sexy, sexy Yiddische mensch while I regale you with who he is and why I love him.

Steven Hill, né Shlomo Krakovski, was a contemporary of an indie actor you might not have heard of, kinda backwater guy, I think his name was... Marlon Brando? Anyway, Martin Landau (another Yiddische mensch in Hollywood) has gone on record as saying that if anyone would have guessed whether Hill or Brando would have been the big name of the silver screen at the time, he would have put his money on Hill - a paraphrase, but just going to show you what level we're working with here.

Hill was known throughout Hollywood as one of the most religious people on set. He was strict about leaving Friday at 4 PM so that he could get ready for Shabbat, which led to his firing from a small show called Mission: Impossible at the end of the first season - yeah, if you're a fan of the movie series with Tom Cruise, thank a Jew!

A funny story from that time: Herb Solow, one of the execs at Desilu - the production company started by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball - recounted once that William Shatner came to his office because Hill got all the Jews on Star Trek and M:I together for a minyan but were still short a man.

Anyway I love this man so much and thank you for indulging me on this, Happy Hannukah tumblr

[ancestralsurvival]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish Life Now®️ Created by Cindy Saltzman (@jewishlifenow)

“Jews run Hollywood.”

No, as Ms. Streisand makes clear, Jews began aspects of modern Hollywood out of the tradition of the Yiddish theater, which also made significant contributions to Broadway:

But we didn’t just tell our own stories, we made it so others could tell their stories:

From the above article:

“He listened,” says Gloria Calderón Kellett, co-showrunner of the 2017-2020 revival of Lear’s One Day at a Time. “He very much understood his privilege, and he leveraged it consistently for other people. For him, it was, ‘How can I best serve you guys in the telling of this story authentically?'”

Listening and helping others are Jewish values.

Maybe Jews were mistaken to ascribe these values to people who don’t believe the way we do. Yet, it still hurts all the more when other people don’t listen and try to help us.

Note: This post is about antisemitism in the diaspora, particularly in the US, and also to contextualize why diaspora Jews in the US have contributed to certain industries. There are many other important issues right now, but they aren’t what this post is about. Also, the “privilege” mentioned in the quote is easily revoked, as we all know too well.

[live-and-die-in-la]

Saw a 50th anniversary screening of Young Frankenstein at The Ford on Halloween. The Ford in LA is an outdoor amphitheater in the Hollywood Hills, built in the 1930s and looks like a gothic castle, so it was great ambiance. Guests had on some excellent movie costumes too.

Street Food Cinema hosted and gave a nice tribute to Teri Garr. RIP. 💔

Everyone in this movie is dead 😭

[iloveethnicities]

Sir Sidney Poitier (1927–2022) was a trailblazing actor, director, and activist whose career broke racial barriers and set new standards for Black representation in Hollywood. Born on February 20, 1927, in Miami, Florida, to Bahamian parents of humble means, Poitier spent much of his early life in the Bahamas. His family were tomato farmers, and his early years were spent on Cat Island before moving to Nassau. A premature birth during a business trip to Miami gave Poitier U.S. citizenship.

As a teenager, Poitier moved to the United States to pursue greater opportunities. Struggling with poverty and racial discrimination, he enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II, later working various menial jobs. His career in acting began serendipitously when he auditioned for the American Negro Theater in New York City. Although his initial audition was unsuccessful due to his thick Bahamian accent, Poitier dedicated himself to improving his craft and mastering American English, eventually earning a spot with the theater.

Sidney Poitier became the first Black actor to achieve true leading-man status in Hollywood, paving the way for generations of Black actors. His breakout role came in 1950 with No Way Out, where he portrayed a doctor in a racially charged drama. This performance set the tone for Poitier's career, often characterized by roles that challenged racial stereotypes and promoted dignity, intelligence, and integrity.

1. The Defiant Ones (1958): Poitier earned his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, becoming the first Black male actor to achieve this milestone.

2. Lilies of the Field (1963): Poitier won the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Black man to receive this honor. In the film, he played an itinerant worker who helps a group of nuns build a chapel, showcasing his ability to bring warmth and humanity to his roles.

3. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967): This film addressed interracial marriage at a time when the topic was still controversial in America. Poitier’s portrayal of a charismatic, accomplished Black doctor in love with a white woman was groundbreaking.

4. In the Heat of the Night (1967): Poitier starred as Virgil Tibbs, a Black detective navigating racism in the Deep South. His famous line, "They call me Mister Tibbs," became a cultural landmark.

Throughout his career, Poitier chose roles that highlighted social issues and avoided perpetuating negative stereotypes, making him a symbol of progress in Hollywood.

Poitier also made significant contributions as a director. In the 1970s and 1980s, he directed several films, often comedies, including Uptown Saturday Night (1974) and Stir Crazy (1980), starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. His work behind the camera demonstrated his versatility and further solidified his influence in the industry.

Beyond acting, Poitier was an advocate for civil rights and racial equality. He was a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr. and used his platform to speak out against injustice. In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, recognizing his lifelong contributions to culture and humanity.

Poitier’s achievements inspired countless Black artists and audiences. His work expanded the scope of possibility for Black actors in Hollywood, dismantling barriers and redefining representation.

Poitier was married twice, first to Juanita Hardy and later to Joanna Shimkus, with whom he shared six daughters. He lived a life characterized by grace and humility, balancing his professional triumphs with a devotion to his family. Poitier passed away on January 6, 2022, at the age of 94.

Sir Sidney Poitier remains a towering figure in cinema and a symbol of perseverance and dignity. As a Bahamian-American icon, he bridged cultural divides and left an indelible mark on the world of entertainment and beyond.

[my-sacred-art]

Sharon Tate (American, Jan. 24, 1943 - Aug. 9, 1969)

Untitled, 1969. Mark Rothko (American, born in Latvia, 1903-1970). The Tate Gallery, London.

[citizenscreen]

Lois Weber (June 13, 1879 – November 13, 1939), groundbreaker, pioneer. One of the leading director-screenwriters in early Hollywood. 🎥

[classicfilmloves]

Lucy reads the top story after she and Desi vist her home town of Jamestown, NY in February 1956.

[koenji]

Shelly Duvall on set of The Shining (1978-79). R.I.P. 🕊️

[randomberlinchick]

When it comes to Hollywood historians or cultural critics, Peter Biskind is in a class by himself. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood was a fucking joy to read. So I am very much looking forward to diving into this.

@gotankgo You in? 😂

[nickysfacts]

French manicures are so simple yet add so much glamour to any look!💜

💅🏻🎞️💅🏾

[haggishlyhagging]

In the silent-film era, Hollywood's film industry grew quickly to meet audience demand, and thus it was more pragmatically welcoming to women writers, editors, directors, and producers than it would be at any other time afterward. Directors like Dorothy Arzner, Lois Weber, and Alice Guy-Blaché (the latter widely considered to be the first true "auteur" of cinema), and actor-producers like Mary Pickford (founder of United Artists studios) and Clara Bow created films that weren't the escapist fantasies Hollywood would come to prize, but human stories that included complex relationships and forward-thinking subject matter: Weber's The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, for instance, was about the need for legalized birth control. At one point, women headed up dozens of production companies. But, as film journalist and historian Melissa Silverstein notes, "As it became more about money, the women behind the scenes disappeared." The expensive technology that turned silents into "talkies" beginning in the 1920s necessitated the involvement of Wall Street, which invested in young studios and became the big bosses of directors and producers, imposing a masculinized and increasingly sex-segregated workforce as part of the burgeoning corporate studio system. Women in powerful creative and decision-making roles were suddenly seen as amateurish and unprofessional; for the male-dominated financial forces that took charge of the Hollywood economy, and with larger and larger amounts of cash at stake, they were simply too much of a risk.

Onscreen, representations of women followed a similar trajectory. In what's now known as the pre-Code era of Hollywood films, women were smart, professional, ambitious, forthright, opaque, tricky, even criminal. They blackmailed bosses, had babies out of wedlock, seduced other women—and the thrillers were even steamier. Jean Harlow's Red-Headed Woman was a brazen social climber more than willing to seduce any man to get what she wanted; Barbara Stanwyck, in Baby Face, was an exploited young woman who used sex to move from penniless to paid ("She had IT and made IT pay" leered the film's poster). And, of course, there was Mae West, the bombshell vaudevillian, playwright, producer, and model for every one of Samantha Jones's Sex and the City single-entendres, whose winking catchphrases—"Come up and see me some-time"; "When a girl goes bad, men go right after her"—have long epitomized pre-Code Hollywood's sassy repartee. It's not that the heroines essayed by these dames were like men; they weren't. They were simply as human onscreen as the men, as full of appetite and humor and stubbornness and fallibility. And that was part of the problem that the Hays Code was enacted to fix.

-Andi Zeisler, We Were Feminists Once

[anyagee]

I can't believe I didn't think about this earlier, but if you're enjoying @hotvintagepoll and think early Hollywood history is interesting, check out Karina Longworth's podcast, You Must Remember This "the podcast dedicated to exploring the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century"

It's on hiatus at the moment, but there's a season on MGM specifically, Hollywood during the second world war, the blacklist, and a whole bunch of interesting stuff!

She also does history later than the poll covers, but I do recommend the two most recent seasons on sex in Hollywood in the 80s and 90s!