Tag Archive | alicia mayer
Latest HollywoodEssays.com mini-documentary: The Mysterious Death of Ted Healy
On December 21, 1937, Hollywood actor, rogue and the creator of the Three Stooges, Ted Healy, went out on a night out on the town to celebrate the birth of his first child. Just 36 hours later he would be found dead. What role did Albert “Cubby” Broccoli (creator of the Bond movie franchise) and […]
UPDATED: The Perfect Pickford Family
“Things didn’t work out that much, you know. But I’ll never forget her. I think that she was a good woman.” Ron Pickford Rogers. Mary Pickford was reportedly too self-absorbed to provide real maternal love. THE PICKFORD FAMILY portrait, probably taken in 1945, was most likely Mary Pickford’s and Buddy Roger’s first official photo with […]
New Hollywood Essays ebooks with foreword by Leonard Maltin coming soon!
I am thrilled to announce that Hollywood Essays will soon be launched as an ebook series! Leonard Maltin, the esteemed film historian, critic and author, will provide the forward. The ebook collection, created in iBooks Author, features expanded essays on the Mayer family of MGM and the legendary filmmakers and stars they worked with. Each […]
The boring places where obsessions are born
“At some point, while I was still on the article’s first page, the young man hopped into the doctor’s office. I kept reading. He would need stitches for sure. The receptionist kept typing. It occurred to me this would be the perfect gig to write your novel. Answer the phone, greet the sick and wounded, […]
Now Showing! The Mitochondrial Candidate
As I think about these descendants of mine – far into the unknown future – I can almost feel myself fade and flicker like a faulty hologram. Why is it that so few of us know anything about our families past two or three generations? I am lucky enough to have a fairly well documented […]
Louis B Mayer: The Legend’s Shadow
For most of my life the legend of my uncle Louis B Mayer loomed large – sometimes tricky shadow, sometimes outright inspiration. For the last 12 months or so I have had a Google alert for Louis B Mayer and even though he has been dead for 50 years – wow – the chatter, the […]
Jean “Baby” Harlow. Dead at 26.
Mitzi Cummings at home with Jean Harlow, 1934. She would be dead three years later at just 26 from renal failure. “It doesn’t matter what degree of talent she possesses … nobody ever starved possessing what she’s got.” Variety Magazine‘s review of Jean Harlow in the 1930′s Howard Hughes’ film Hell’s Angels. This is a […]
Irene Mayer Selznick – first producer of A Street Car Named Desire
As I watch the Tony Awards at home in Sydney, Australia on a rainy, stormy day – as always from a distance to those major events that my family was involved in – I am inspired to post this series of photos of my cousin Irene Mayer Selznick with her sister Edie. Edie and Irene […]
Mitzi with Judy Garland… and wow, that couch!
In celebration of what would be Judy Garland’s 90th birthday: My grandmother Mitzi Cummings with Judy Garland, date unknown but probably well before The Wizard of Oz. It’s possible she is wearing her own clothes and is not in costume, but if you recognize the outfit she is wearing as wardrobe for one of her […]
