THE ECHO OF A DISTANT TIME - 'Wine, women and song'. Girly pics, history, nostalgia, Golden Age of Hollywood, and more. Not always SFW, but always in good taste.
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| Warner Brothers |
Seen here with the goddess Jean Harlow in a promotional shot for The Public Enemy (1931, WB).
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| George Grantham Bain |
As for Virginia Rappe, unfortunately she was not a particularly prolific model and actress, only beginning in earnest when she moved to Los Angeles in 1917, then already 26 years old. Most of the films on her thin rΓ©sumΓ© are considered lost, leaving the question of what might have been very much unanswered. We simply do not know what kind of actress she was, or what she might have become. Regardless, she was a human being, and it is unfortunate that she is remembered chiefly for a scandal which, in the end, may not have been much of a scandal at all.
After all, the jury in Arbuckle's third and final trial went so far as to issue him a formal apology.
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| Steven Rea, c. 1943; colourised |
Amazingly, she made a courageous comeback as the wheelchair-bound villainess Leah St. Aubyn in 1948’s The Sign of the Ram (Columbia Pictures), a film that I am fairly certain I have seen at some point in the distant recesses of my memory, and may even have enjoyed, in spite of the fact it did not receive good reviews and was a box office flop. More critically successful was her turn as Laura Wingfield in a production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, and she also appeared as Elizabeth Barrett Browning in a production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In 1951, she starred in a live daily half-hour drama (not an uncommon practice in the early days of television) named Miss Susan for NBC, but this ended after about nine months as her health declined.
By 1952, abandoned by both her former husband and a fiancΓ©, and suffering profoundly from clinical depression and the effects of her paralysis, Susan Peters appeared to lose the will to live (apparently telling a doctor as much) and largely stopped eating and drinking. Compounded by the effects of her paralysis, she developed pneumonia and a chronic kidney infection, which ultimately killed her, only thirty-one years old.
The universe is indifferent, and why such tragedy befalls innocent people and creatures I shall never understand. It certainly damages my faith in God whenever I hear a story such as this one, or witness needless cruelty and suffering in the world. Yet I do pray, and hope not in vain, that Susan Peters ultimately found the peace and happiness that so cruelly eluded her in life.
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| Warner Bros. |
“I make movies for grownups. When Hollywood starts making them again, I'll start acting in them again.”
(source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/lee_remick_211415)
Sadly, the world lost one of its great thespians on this day in 1991, another life cut short by cancer. Seen here in Days of Wine and Roses (1962); though amid the extraordinary heatwave afflicting the eastern half of the former United States, one could be forgiven for thinking this photograph was taken only moments ago. But I digress.
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At the time of this photo still, she was the richest and most famous actress in the world, described by a contemporary writer as ‘the best known woman who has ever lived, the woman who was known to more people and loved by more people than any other woman that has been in all history’.
Virtually forgotten today, partially due to having become a recluse later in life and partially due to the simple passage of time, which is sinful given that she was more than a mere actress, but a pioneer in the young film industry, co-founding United Artists in 1919 alongside (future husband) Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. All household names of the time themselves, though — best I can tell — only Charlie Chaplin might be recognised by a majority of folks today, and even then maybe only a majority of older people, as very few younger ones would know or care.
I sometimes wonder whether that contributed, among many other factors, to Miss Pickford's depression in later life: knowing that even the most beloved public figures are eventually forgotten by the audiences that once adored them.
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| MGM lobby card |
The plot, in a nutshell: a pampered housewife robs a bank because she is bored and her husband — the manager of the very bank she hath robbed, played by Scottish actor Ian Bannen, who was also far too talented for this dreck — does not pay her sufficient attention. In the end, everybody more or less lets her get away with it because she is just so darn cute, I suppose.
MGM
The college flashback sequence featuring Jonathan Winters as a lecherous professor who refuses to keep his hands to himself is particularly galling, even by the standards of 1966. It is not amusing in the slightest, despite the filmmakers' obvious belief that it should be. It is merely obnoxious and unpleasant. Peter Falk appears as a detective (still a few years away from Columbo) and somehow manages to look embarrassed to be there, which, frankly, he should have been.
Still, with a reported wardrobe budget of $250,000, Penelope did at least provide Natalie Wood with an abundance of glamorous costumes and enough pin-up material to satisfy her admirers. The star herself reportedly disliked the film, saying: “I broke out in hives and suffered anguish that was very real pain every day we shot.”
Natalie Wood was just twenty-eight years old when Penelope was released in November 1966, yet it is difficult to escape the conclusion that much of her finest work was already behind her. When one surveys her filmography, her strongest performances are concentrated between the mid-1950s and the early 1960s. Whether Hollywood ceased offering her the best material, whether she selected some unfortunate projects, fate simply had other plans.
MGM
Natalie did not make another film until 1969 (another wretched sex farce whose only value is the star frolicking around in skimpy outfits), and was not very active at all in the 1970s. Had she not been tragically lost in 1981, perhaps there would have been a triumphant second act. I do believe that had she lived, and if she had chosen better roles and been in a better headspace, she was talented enough as an actress that she could have continued working into old age, as with Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, and so forth. Had she been really focused, she possessed sufficient talent that a distinguished late-career renaissance would hardly have been beyond the realm of possibility.
Whatever the answers as to what exactly went wrong with Natalie Wood’s career after the mid-1960s, or with the lady herself, Penelope remains one of the clearest examples of a gifted actress being let down by material utterly unworthy of her talents.
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| photo: Eric Carpenter, c. 1943 |
Though delivered with a measure of worldly cynicism, there is a kernel of truth in the observation. Men are most often judged by what they can provide, and the loudest self-appointed gurus of modern masculinity (the ‘manosphere’) seem to understand only half of that equation. They obsess over testosterone, dominance, berating women, and projecting their twisted ideas of strength, whilst paying comparatively little attention to cultivating their minds, developing useful skills, or improving their financial prospects in life. Earning power is more important than virility — muscles and all of that are icing on the cake; if the cake is rich enough then it does not need any icing.
Yours truly hath made a million mistakes through the years. In my younger days, I spent far too much time worrying about the wrong things. Not because I was trying to become some sort of he-man figure — though I have the voice of a much more imposing man, my pale and skinny arse was still never destined for that role; mind you, this was also long before the current moral panic over the loss of masculinity and the ugliness it hath inspired — but because I was forever trying to fit in with groups and individuals whose approval I believed I needed. Even in my late thirties when I was involved in the twelve-step cult, I was all too often a ‘people pleaser’. It was ingrained in me by numerous parties, during my formative years, that simply being myself was never going to suffice. None of those people are anywhere to be found today, when I am too exhausted and fed-up to be anything but myself.
Looking back, I can see how much time and energy I wasted pursuing acceptance from people who neither deserved it nor appreciated it. I cared too much about belonging and not nearly enough about building a life for myself. Had I chosen different priorities, surrounded myself with different people, and possessed a little more confidence in my own judgement, many things would have turned out differently. Perhaps I would be able to leave this dying country if I had, somehow, made more money in my prime years. Instead, I shall die here, with all the other fools.
On the other hand, even if I had become a rich man, I do not know that there are any Lana Turners to be had in this world now.
But I digress.
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| Ernest Bachrach/John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images |
Independent, fiercely intelligent, headstrong, and utterly unwilling to conform to expectations, she was a pioneer in more ways than one. Four Academy Awards for Best Actress attests to this. In an industry built upon image, compromise, and conformity, she stubbornly insisted upon being Katharine Hepburn. I harbour a deep respect for people who live life on their own terms and refuse to allow society to dictate who they must be. Such individuals make the rest of you uncomfortable. They challenge conventions. They are difficult, argumentative, impatient, and occasionally maddening (takes one to know one, folks). Katharine Hepburn was all of those things at various times, and so too was the great love of her life, Mr Spencer Tracy. Neither would have won many prizes for meek obedience.
History is not shaped by the obedient. Without individuals of strong character, personality, and will, no progress would ever be made in this world, and civilisation would stagnate altogether (to some extent, I see this happening in real time). At the very least, it would be a duller and less interesting world. We ought to give eternal thanks that people such as Katharine Hepburn — and Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, James Cagney, James Stewart, Norma Shearer, and I could go on and on — once graced this unworthy world with their presence.
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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
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| Universal publicity shot, 1948 |
https://apnews.com/article/ann-blyth-dead-98-mildred-pierce-56ff27b6e5a8446bb239be6ce4a66311
Fare thee well, Ann Blyth: the Oscar-nominated actress, singer, and star of the 1940s and 50s hath died, aged 98. Forever remembered for her portrayal of the manipulative Veda Pierce in 1945's Mildred Pierce, yet equally capable of charm and warmth in a host of lighter musical roles. Such as in 1948’s Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (pictured above), in which she appeared opposite William Powell. One of the last living links to Hollywood's Golden Age departs the stage, and the world grows a little stranger — and a little colder — with each passing day.
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| source unknown |
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| source unknown |
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| source unknown; colourised via ChatGPT |
Priscilla enjoyed her greatest screen success during her years at Warner Brothers, where she was arguably best remembered for starring opposite two heavyweights, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, in the 1939 gangster epic The Roaring Twenties. She compiled a formidable rΓ©sumΓ© by sharing the screen with, among others, Cary Grant, Ronald Reagan, Wayne Morris, Jane Wyman, George Brent, and Jack Benny.
After departing Warner Brothers for a brief stint at Universal Pictures, she appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1942 thriller Saboteur, reportedly over the director’s objections, as he felt she was too much of a ‘girl next door’ type for the role.
Following the Second World War, she largely retired from the film industry and eventually settled with her New England-born husband, former US Army Air Corpsman Joseph Howard, in Andover, Massachusetts. For a spell in the late 1950s, she hosted a daytime television talk show on WBZ-TV (Channel 4) in Boston.
She was laid to rest beside her husband at Arlington National Cemetery, her life a testament to the fact that not every Hollywood story requires a tragic ending.
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| Getty Images |
Born on 10 June 1965 in Basingstoke, she emerged during an era when Britain was unusually proficient at producing women of remarkable beauty and exporting them to the wider world. She has also possessed uncommon staying power, navigating modelling, film, television, fashion, and celebrity culture with an ease suggesting that she understands the machinery of fame better than most of those operating it.
North of sixty, she is still very much in striking form, carrying herself with the confidence and poise of someone entirely comfortable in her own skin and wholly uninterested in apologising for it. I must confess that I do not know what to make of reports that she is dating Billy Ray Cyrus, of all the bloody people in this world, except that beautiful women have been making baffling romantic decisions since the dawn of civilisation. Hugh Grant may attest to that, though obviously it is not at all baffling why almost any woman would, at least at first sight, be swept off her feet by a devastatingly handsome British gentleman. Billy Ray, a redneck American whose only claims to fame are a hit song from thirty-five years ago and fathering an obnoxious daughter who nonetheless scored more hits than he ever did, is a lot harder to figure out. But I digress.
No matter. Elizabeth Hurley remains a vibrant and shining presence in this undeserving world, and Mr ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ had better not break hers.
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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.
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| source unknown |
Undeniably beautiful, certainly, but also projecting intelligence, vitality, and a faintly mischievous confidence that made audiences take notice, there was a real spark about this foxy lady, Yvonne Craig: an impression that she was fully aware of the absurdity of show business and was enjoying the spectacle nonetheless. As an actress, she moved effortlessly between dramatic and comedic material and demonstrated a perhaps surprising versatility. Westerns, adventures, light comedies, dramas: she did it all.
Her background as a trained dancer meant Craig possessed remarkable poise, athleticism, and bodily control. In practical terms, this meant she could perform demanding physical sequences while retaining an elegance that many performers would have sacrificed the moment things became strenuous; making her perfect, of course, for the role of television’s ultimate camp superheroine — and for so much more. All the hail the television goddess, Yvonne Craig.
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Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.
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| Columbia Pictures, 1942 |
Over a career that spanned more than sixty years, she became a very mistress of metamorphosis. First the golden ingΓ©nue of the early talkies, then—under the darkling, chiaroscuro eye of Fritz Lang—the smouldering brunette heroine of Scarlet Street and The Woman in the Window, before emerging, in her later years, as a commanding matriarch of theatre, cinema, and television alike.
Few actresses navigated Hollywood’s shifting eras with such poise or intelligence. Joan Bennett remains not merely the descendant of a storied lineage, but its apotheosis: a woman who reinvented herself across the decades with elegance, courage, and a rare, enduring luminosity.
Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.
Her expression—neither wantonly coy nor stiffly defiant—appears to be caught betwixt thought and dreaming, belonging less unto the realm of the sensual than unto that of memory and inward musing. An archetype of governed fragility: present and yet unknowable, mortal and yet refined to an ideal. A beauty that crieth not aloud, but breatheth gently, like a whispered truth.
Truly, Sharon Stone was among the fairest and most admired women upon the earth at the hour of this shoot, and rose thereafter to become one of Hollywood’s highest-grossing and most gifted actresses in the prime of her days. Of what present course she steereth now I know not, yet I doubt not she remains a bold and dauntless spirit still.
Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.
From the mid-1940s through the following decade, her name did shine upon the marquees of an industry labouring to recover its confidence after the lean austerity of war. To domestic audiences she stood as a pledge of continuance—glamour without prodigality, sophistication without vanity—and she played the screen heroine with a natural restraint now almost lost to the art.
Abroad she was never a household name, yet at home she represented something vital: the assurance that British cinema might stand firm upon its own aesthetic footing, cultivating composure where Hollywood paraded its marvels. An age when understatement bore the lustre of magnificence, and Jean Kent was its most radiant exemplar.
Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.
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Few stars ever carried such light within such fragility. Her smile illuminates the frame, yet behind it flickers the shadow of introspection, the faint ache that made her beauty so indelible. Not all of her films were winners (see Penelope, as wretched a film as I've ever seen), but in all she was both muse and mystery—a woman whose brightness could fill a cinema, and whose silence could linger long after the film had ended.
Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.
photo: source unknown; colourised via ChatGPT Renowned English actress Diane Keen , celebrating her 79th birthday today (born 29 July 1947 i...
