Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper claims she knew Elizabeth Taylor was going to leave husband no. 4, Eddie Fisher for future husband no. 5 (and 6) Richard Burton, and she tried to be the first to break the story but her lawyer wouldn’t allow it to be printed! He was not only Hedda’s lawyer, but also Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s! He felt it would be too embarrassing to have have to sue her since he represents all three of them.

Source: Fifty Years of Movie Gossip, The Sydney Morning Herald, Feb 3 1963, Page 32

Rex Harrison’s jeweled sultan’s robe in King Richard and the Crusaders weighs 40 lbs. In the same picture Virginia Mayo wears less than 4 lbs of chiffon, shoes and coronet.

Source: Weight Difference, The Miami News, Aug 8 1954, Page 54
Photo:  Cinema.de

Below is a bizarre article where an anonymous “leading Hollywood director” who is obsessed with chins, comments on the best chins in the industry. He explains that without a lovely chin-line, the effect of all the other features is lost because the chin is the seat of character.

	Though Irene Dunne’s nose and mouth are beautiful, it is her firm, yet feminine chin which makes her exceptionally attractive.
	Claudette Colbert’s chin is not classic, but it is tops in piquancy.
	Gail Patrick has the perfect chin for a tall girl. It is neither too weak or too firm.
	Miriam Hopkins is noted because her chin has marked individuality and yet is beautiful.

This chin-loving director then gives some advice on how to keep your chin line firm:

• Practice holding your head high at all times
• It is a good idea when you are alone, to exaggerate your chin-up attitude
• Even when reading, see to it that your head is not bent over in an unattractive manner
• Perfect posture is most important in having and keeping a good chin contour, an excellent way to achieve perfect posture is to stand with your back to the wall of a room and try to have every part of the body – head, shoulder, back, and legs – touch the wall surface

Source: Beauty Brevities, The Spokesman Review, Nov 7 1937, Page 44

Below is an article written by Marilyn Monroe in 1954 for a political column called The Washington Merry-Go-Round.

From time to time I’ve been quoted in the entertainment columns of newspapers, and even in news stories, but this is the first time I’ve been invited to contribute to a column which deals with national affairs on a high level.

Nearest I’ve come to affecting the national establishment was when a War Department representative, through a comedy of errors, ordered killed a picture of me taken with some service girls in Atlantic City, but the newspapers ran the picture anyways and a truce was arranged.

Later, 11 Marines went AWOL in Korea to hear me sing, but the incident was handled on the spot. They were confined to camp for a month, and Washington was not distracted from its more important problems.

In brief, as Lorelei would say, what is a girl like I doing in Drew Person’s column?

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been lucky and a lot of my fellow Americans have cheered from the sidelines as a little gal without much background found success and happiness the hard way.

Being neither a natural-born actress, singer, nor dancer, I still pinch myself as I drive to work on the lot in a very nice automobile and go into a singing, dancing, and dramatic routine in Irving Berlin’s There’s No Business Like Show Business.

I work with such talented people as Ethel Merman, Donald O’Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, Johnnie Ray and Dan Dailey, and I feel warm all over when Irving Berlin tells me that I’m a fine performer, as distinguished from a pinup personality.

You might like to know that my pinup days are over – well, sort of. I still want to look nice and have our servicemen and others take pleasure in my pictures, but I also want to be known as a good actress. I think Seven Year Itch, which I start soon, will give me a wonderful opportunity to show how I’ve improved since my first small bit in “Ladies of the Chorus.”

Years ago, during a short period I spent in an orphan’s home because of my mother’s illness, I used to look out at the big sign on the RKO lot in Hollywood and dream of stardom. I thought it would be the easiest and the most glamorous life in the world.

Well, I like the glamour part but it certainly isn’t easy. I work hard and study hard and have little time even for my husband. But I do divorce my private life from my career as an actress, and that is why you never see Joe and me posing together around Hollywood.

I’d have enjoyed going East recently to watch Joe with one over the fence in his old timers’ exhibition game, but I was here in Hollywood that morning, up at 5 am, getting dressed and made up for a routine with Donald O’Connor.

As to the future, I just don’t know. On the horizon, like a black cloud, is the frightening figure of Dior, who has decreed that girls must be flat-chested. If this comes about, I will be a dead duck and people will be speaking of Marilyn in the past tense because no matter what Dior decrees come out of Paris, I just don’t qualify.

Source: Merman and Monroe Talk About Men and Fashions, The Victoria Advocate, Aug 31 1954, Page 2

In the spring of 1946 while filming Desire Me with Robert Mitchum, actress Greer Garson almost drowned! She was filming a shrimp gathering scene on a rocky shore when a huge wave swept her off a rock and into the ocean. A local skipper of sardine fishing boat rescued Miss Garson who was badly cut and bruised during the incident. She was taken to the local hospital and then to her Pebble Beach summer home to recover under a physician’s care.

Source: Greer Garson Escapes Drowning, St. Petersburg Times, Apr 20 1946, Page 13
Photo: GreerGarson.net

 Kirk is a man with a strong personality and a lot of opinions and he likes to get his point across. He’s a little difficult to adjust to, but I found it’s mostly a matter of understanding and overlooking a lot… mostly overlooking.

- Kim Novak on working with Kirk Douglas in 1960′s Strangers When We Met

Source: Kirk and Kim Feud, St. Petersburg Times, Nov 11 1959, Page 19

This 1950 Pepsi commercial was James Dean first television appearance. He is the guy who puts money in the piano.

Source: Retronaut

When I make something, I want it to have the stamp of my personality all the way. That is the exciting thing – to be in on something creative from its birth.

Source: Burt Lancaster Says You Can’t Protect Yourself By Trying to Hide From Life, Ocala Star-Banner, Apr 29 1962, Page 20
Photo: IMDB

In the summer of 1966, actor Jason Robards Jr – husband of Lauren Bacall, was booked on charges of disturbing the peace. Robards was put under a citizen’s arrest by actor Jon Hall after Hall found him and a friend running around his backyard extremely intoxicated, “apparently trying to play Tarzan”. The pair had an enormous Great Dane dog with them that they allegedly tried to get to attack Mrs. Hall by ordering it to “sic”. The dog though merely wagged it’s tail and was not a threat. Robards and his friend were arrested and held in jail a few hours before posting $110 each for bail.

Source: Robards Arrested for Tarzan Caper, Lawrence Journal-World, Aug 22 1966, Page 2
Photo: Corbis

*At the time of this interview, Joan had already been married and divorced three times. She had one more brief marriage before finally giving up her search to find her Mr. Right.

Who is the right man?

I’ve never met the ideal man. My big problem is that I have a great responsibility. I have four children. I know they’ll be better off if they have a father. These four kids (adopted) never did have a father and I’d be better off with a husband – but suppose I get a husband who doesn’t like kids, or a father who doesn’t love me?

What if the right man never comes along?

In that case I’m already adjusted to my life the way it is now – with my two great loves, my children and my work. No girl can go out and look for a husband. They way of a woman’s life doesn’t call for that.

Source: Joan Crawford Still Seeking Right Man, The Miami News, Aug 8 1954, Page 53
Photo: Fashion’s Most Wanted