Macy's Makes Me Cry

It doesn't take a whole lot to make me cry. Lauren Bacall's autobiography, Judy Garland's singing voice, that scene in The Women where Norma Shearer informs tiny little Virginia Weidler of Norma's marital meltdown - all are time-tested tearjerkers. It was not lightly, then, that I received the first airing of the 2008 Macy's holiday season commercial, which strings together such famed and fabled film faves as Charlie Chaplin, Natalie Wood, Alice Faye, Bob Hope, Orson Welles, Shirley MacLaine and Lucille Ball.

Is it cinema nostalgia or simply heartfelt holiday warmth that makes me cry? In all honesty - I think it's Susan Walker.

Filially Fabulous: Stephen Humphrey Bogart

When screen legend Humphrey Bogart succumbed to cancer in the early days of 1957, the last-century boy - he was born December 25, 1899 - left an indelible impression on the world of film, and a viable absence in the lives of his family. His actress wife Lauren Bacall chronicled the heartbreaking loss in her 1978 autobiography, where she stressed the impact of his untimely death on the couple's two young children, son Stephen and daughter Leslie, just 8 and 4, respectively, at the time of their father's passing. The bereaved trio ultimately coped, but Stephen, burdened by public fascination with his iconic father and vying to live outside of the shadow cast by such association, struggled with identity issues and substance abuse problems throughout his young life.

Fortunately, such unrest is impossible to place on the 59-year-old today. The younger Bogart is now a successful author and entrepeneur who utilizes his tony, unique childhood experience as celebrity offspring to lend an air of authenticity to his classic film-related endeavors; chief among them is MODA Entertainment, which he co-founded and developed from 1997 through 2008. His promotion of such retrospective-themed print, radio, and film work takes him to small, accessible venues throughout the country, where he interacts with reporters and fans and fields questions with genuine candor and enthusiasm, as he did when visiting Chicago's famed Hollywood Boulevard Cinema this past weekend.

Amiable and approachable, Bogart greeted fans and inquiries with equal graciousness as he hosted the presentation of the theater's latest addition, the Casablanca-themed "Moroccan Room," where his father's fabled film was the new theater's incendiary screening. He signed autographs, chatted with curious fans, even happily personalized my favorite photograph of his parents while talking film shop in the Boulevard lobby (he kindly indulged us in some incredible backstories about his mother and father).

With so many links to the golden age of cinema but tenuous and undignified ones, Stephen Bogart is delightfully refreshing representative and facilitator of film's preservation, celebration, and translation today. Here's looking at you, kid.



For more information on upcoming Hollywood Blvd events, please visit their website.
Find out more about the array of creative projects MODA Entertainment has spawned here.

Judy, Judy, Beauty

  Strolling through the campus rose garden after Latin class this week, I came upon a particular placard that denoted a gorgeous crop of classic film flowers. These beautiful yellow-and-orange hybrid roses are named in honor of Miss Judy Garland, the sparkliest star of the MGM constellation in the 1930's and 40's.

  The idea for the Garland flower was developed and implemented by longtime Judy fan Pat Losiewicz in 1970, the year after Garland's death, but it took nearly a decade for the horticultural homage to become a reality. Frustrated with a lack of response from American rosegrowers, Losiewicz transferred the project to the President of the Great Britain Judy Garland Fan Club, Gwen Potter, who selected the rose from a collection of unnamed hybrids in 1978; the flower was finally available for sale in the United States in 1991.

  The flowers are planted near Judy's gravesite in Ferncliff Cemetery, New York, as well as at the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand, Rapids, MN, the result of another effort spearheaded by superfan Losiewicz.





The Judy Garland Rose is available for purchase via Heirloom Roses. Please note that clicking this link will take you to an external site.

Cary-ing On the Tradition

Actress Jennifer Grant, the only child of super-suave screen legend Cary Grant and his fourth wife, actress Dyan Cannon, gave birth to her first child on August 12, 2008, in Los Angeles, California. Jennifer, 42, named her new son Cary Benjamin Grant.

Jennifer is currently working on a book about her life and famous father; entitled "Good Stuff", it is slated for a 2009 release.

Source

Decades of Darling!

I will admit it. When I read of eternally-cute June Allyson's outspoken, matchmaking fans in her mildly heartstring-tugging 1984 autobiography, I knew immediately that I was one of them. After June's smash success alongside Van Johnson in their 1944 film, Two Girls and A Sailor, moviegoers the globe over began to plan the pair's nuptials, write scenarios of their wedded bliss, and submit potential names for future Allyson-Johnson offspring - all hypothetical, of course - to movie magazines of the day. While a reflective and amused Allyson divulged that she adored Johnson but enjoyed only a platonic relationship with him, their onscreen interaction was, and is, so sparkling and wholesome, so innocently romantic, so darned charming, you can't help but imagine a preacher and a white picket fence in their near future every time the credits roll on one of their five collaborative films.

Imagine my pure and unfettered delight, then, upon discovering the painfully adorable partners in a 1984 episode of the Angela Lansbury television classic, "Murder, She Wrote". Forty years after their first screen pairing, Van and Junie were still as darling as they had been when they were sharing marquees with Jimmy Durante and Gloria deHaven, and I'm sure there were more than a few erstwhile audience members thrilled at their onscreen reunion upon the show's airing nearly 25 years ago (though Van and June were still pretty young themselves: she was a mere 67 to his 68). Despite a rather lackluster storyline in the 48-minute mystery and a disappointing amount of screentime alloted Miss Allyson (she appears but briefly as a pivotal supporting character), that old MGM chemistry was in full force between those two dolls - all that was missing was a little Technicolor, Butch Jenkins and a Freed Unit number, and it would've been 1944 all over again!


The episode of "Murder, She Wrote" featuring Van Johnson and June Allyson is entitled "Hit, Run and Homicide" and is available in the first season of the show's DVD release.

Impressive!

  Contemporary actor Ryan Phillipe, 33, recently appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where he attributed the name of his daughter Ava Phillipe to none other than 40's and 50's screen siren Ava Gardner. Ava, 8, was given her moniker long before its sudden and persistent surge in popularity in recent years; Phillipe noted that, in addition to belonging to his idol Frank Sinatra's second wife Gardner, he found the name to be "very classy and strong." I was simply impressed by such smart parentage with that move. If only she had a sister named Lana...

Ava is Ryan's daughter with ex-wife actress Reese Witherspoon.

Source: Celebrity Baby Blog

Really, Mis-ta Awlnut

Perhaps I didn't quite capture the essence of Katharine Hepburn's clench-jawed accent with the title of this post, but were I in the presence of the dilapidated old African Queen from the film of the same name, I'm sure I could dredge up more of an authentically eccentric impression of the saucy star. And Queen is more than accessible: the newly-repaired steamboat, one of several used in the 1951 film, is docked at the Holiday Inn Marina in Key Largo, Florida. And yes, you can take a cruise in her - leeches optional. How hot is that?!

The African Queen is located at Mile Marker 100, Key Largo, FL. You can find out more information by calling (305) 451-4655 or visiting The Holiday Inn Key Largo website

Hometown Homage

  If there ever was a moment for re-inforcing my hometown pride, it was the Christmastime discovery of a Hollywood homage in my very own downtown. Handsome actor Kerwin Mathews, perhaps best known for his swarthiness and swordfighting in films like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and 1962's Jack The Giant Killer, was recently honored in his home city of Janesville, Wisconsin, just months after his July 5th death in San Franscisco at the age of 81.

  Mathews was born in Seattle but raised in Janesville (he attended high school with my grandparents), a city of around 60,000, and stayed close to his midwestern roots until his late twenties, when he left a high school teaching position to make a foray to Hollywood. Although he never achieved the fame of contemporary 1950s stars like William Holden or Spencer Tracy, with whom he starred in The Devil at Four O'Clock, he nonetheless found a particular genre of films which suited his acrobatic and acting abilities, and remains a cult favorite even today. He relocated to San Francisco in the 1970's, where he replaced a dwindling number of TV and film roles with an interest in dealing antiques and furniture; he remained in the city until his 2007 death.

The city of Janesville recently renamed a small street in its historic downtown area after Mathews, which I was giddy to find while home for Christmas break:

(I will, of course, completely overlook the fact that they spelled his name wrong, at least until I sit down to write my congressman about it).

Kerwin Photo Source