Archive for April, 2023

These anecdotal accounts of movie mogul misbehavior are both appealing and appalling. They’re drawn from the annals (that’s annals, with 2 n’s) of Hollywood’s Golden Age – back when actors in films were shot in epic fashion; and not accidentally by Alec Baldwin. It was a less enlightened age of entertainment when men were men and women were scenery. It was a time when Photoplay magazine ensured movie stars twinkled brightly in the folds of its pages. It was also an era when fiendish Hollywood reporters (like me), looking for a scoop, sought to expose the seamy and sordid side of the silver screen.

                            

However well-behaved actors were on the screen, they could never fig leaf the apostasies going on behind the camera. A Pandora’s Box of apostasies I’m going to blow the lid off (albeit 100 or so years after the fact). That’s what people like me do. My name is David Fescue of the Hollywood Reporter and if you don’t like what this David is doing, then Fescue! 

 

 

Gung Ho-llywood

 

Hollywood has been making movie magic ever since Mr. Edison et al perfected the Kinetograph machine in 1892. Undoubtedly there are more comprehensive histories of early Hollywood, but none would be as fun to read as this one. It’s short, funny and laden with gooey, carbohydrate-rich phrases that satisfy the pleasure centers in the hippocampus or wherever that place is in the brain that makes us roll our eyes back and breathily exclaim, “Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. It’s so good!”

And now that I think of it, I believe a hippocampus is a place where hippopotamuses go to school.   

 

The cerebrally chubby may be wise to avert their eyes from this sinfully caloric Cinna-bon mots. However, you’d be even wiser to make popcorn, turn down the lights and watch these entertaining words go by. Focus groups all agree, that after reading this tawdry tell-all, you’re going to say, “Not only do I not want these 6 minutes of my life back, I wish I had another 6 minutes to contribute. And that’s why God created sequels, so stay tuned.

 

Meanwhile, now that the credits are out of the way, enjoy the rest of the show. At the risk of mongering too much gossip or butting too much scuttle or raking too much muck, I’ve decided to tattle on the less savory side of Hollywood – a scandal sheet of celebrity secrets laundered in the purifying radiance of backlit computer screens. So, without further adieu, I mean without further ado, David Fescue presents:

 

 

Trivial Tales of Tinseltown: A Tattler Plies His Trade

 

A celebrity is often defined as someone who’s known for being famous. Back in the day that included personalities of marginal talent, such as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Arthur Godfrey or Hedda Hopper. Whatever that elusive quality is that makes someone a celebrity, Jazz Age actress Clara Bow had It. In fact, she had so much of It that she was known as the “It Girl.” Appropriately, her epitaph at Forest Lawn reads: That’s It Girl.  

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