"When your head says one thing and your whole life says another, your head always loses." John Huston directed this film-noir  masterpiece with an incredible cast which included the legendary Humphrey Bogart, Lionel Barrymore, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, and the fabulous Claire Trevor - who won an Oscar for her outstanding performance. The movie is set in Key Largo, where a hurricane is fast approaching, adding to the already-tense atmosphere inside the hotel. The sadistic mobster Johnny Rocco storms in and takes the hotel owner, James Temple, his widowed daughter-in-law Nora, and ex-GI Frank McCloud, hostage at gunpoint. Fun fact: When Claire Trevor asked John Huston for some insight into her character, he gave her a hilarious description of "a drunken dame whose elbows are always a little too big, voice a little too loud, and a little too polite. Very sad, very resigned." And to top it off, he even showed her how to embody the character by leaning on the ...

In June of last year, I had the good fortune to take a tour of the Clark Gable Museum located in Cadiz, Ohio. The museum is an exact reconstruction of the original house where Gable was born, which sadly, had been previously demolished. The two-story home is full of Gable memorabilia from his early days in southeastern Ohio, including his prized New Port Blue 1954 Cadillac Coupe De Ville, which was my personal favorite part of the tour. Additionally, famous Gone With The Wind stars Cammie King-Bonnie Blue Butler, Ann Rutherford, and Butterfly McQueen have also left their handprints and signatures on display at the museum. Interestingly, my hand size happens to be the same as Ann Rutherford's, which was a fun fact. However, the tour also contained a somber and poignant moment with the Carole Lombard room. Unfortunately, we were not permitted to take any photographs of the personal notes or jewelry that Gable had gifted to Lombard, or any of his childhood memorabilia, including his b...

“I was never really young. I had to learn self-reliance early. So, I probably deserve little or no credit for the self-reliance with which I’m always ticketed. After all, self-preservation is pretty basic.”    

  Double, triple, and quadruple classic Hollywood glamour!   Lucille Ball Joan Collins Kay Francis Carole Lombard Natalie Wood Priscilla Lane George Raft Alice White  Robert Alda   Anita Page Bette Davis Sylvia Sidney Betty Grable Ida Lupino Joan Crawford Grace Bradley

In honor of International Women's Day, let's shine a light on the remarkable Ida Lupino!   Born on February 4, 1914, into a family of actors in showbiz, this London-born actress, producer, screenwriter, and director made her mark in Hollywood in her teens and twenties at Warner Bros.  Despite a bout with polio in late 1934, her strength, determination, and talent propelled her to fame with films such as They Drive By Night (1940), High Sierra (1941), The Sea Wolf (1941), Ladies in Retirement (1941), and The Hard Way (1943). They Drive by Night (1940) with Humphrey Bogart   Escape Me Never (1947) with Errol Flynn       Following a heart attack suffered by director Elmer Clifton while filming Not Wanted (1949), co-writer and co-producer Ida Lupino assumed the directing role without taking any credit. The last female director in Hollywood prior to Lupino was Dorothy Arzner, who retired in 1942. In 1948, Lupino and her then-husband Collier Young formed ...