Hollywood History – Page 5 – Old Magazine Articles

The Young Nancy Reagan
(Modern Screen, 1951)

Published in a Hollywood fan magazine some months prior to her engagement with Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) was this 1951 profile of the actress Nancy Davis (born Anne Frances Robbins: 1921 – 2016). A gossipy yet informative article that covers her days at Smith College, her relationship with capitol H Hollywood stars Alla Nazimova and Walter Houston, the eight films in which she had acted in up to that time and the various assorted reactions she instilled in such directors as William Wellman and Dore Schary.

A 1942 article by the young Ronald Reagan can be read here…

The Biz
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)

Pulled from the business section of a 1940 issue of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE was this list of Hollywood statistics that should be of interest to all you old movie fans. If you’ve ever wondered how the Dream Factory fared following the Great Depression, you can stop scratching your head bone – herein you will learn how many souls were on Hollywood’s payroll, how many movies did the town make each year (give or take), what percentage of global film production was turned out by Hollywood and how many American movie theaters were there in 1940.

Movie Exhibitors vs Movie Producers
(Ken Magazine, 1938)

A 1938 magazine article pertains to a brawl that once existed between movie exhibitors and movie producers involving the Hollywood practice known as block-booking, which required theater owners to commit to movies they have never seen. The article refers to how Hollywood employed their biggest stars to fight legislation in Washington designed to overturn this scheme.

The bill was defeated.

Click here to read about Marilyn Monroe and watch a terrific documentary about her life.

More about the American film business in the 1940s can be read here…

The Hollywood Leg Gag
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

Here is a 1937 article that reminds us that there wasn’t anything left to chance or improvisation under the old studio system:

One of the oldest newspaper publicity devices is the ‘leg display’. Resorted to chiefly by actresses whose press agents want them to break into print, it consists of nothing more than arriving in New York aboard an ocean liner and letting news photographers do the rest.

The adoration of the Feminine Leg began some twenty yeras earlier with the flappers; click here to read more on this topic…

Hollywood and the Game of Bogus Plagiarism Law Suits
(Rob Wagner’s Script, 1935)

A bitter article written by a Hollywood veteran concerning what was at the time recognized as a growing cottage industry: recreational law suits that lay claim to falsified violations of movie plagiarism.
Robert Lord (b. 1902, Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1932) penned this two page article and outlined it all quite clearly as to how the plagiarism game was played in 1930s Hollywood.

M.G.M. Casting Director Billy Grady Tells All
(Literary Digest, 1936)

Back in the day, he was responsible for casting 91,000 film actors each year, he was,

Hollywood’s No. 1 casting director, Billy Grady: broad-shouldered, open-faced Irishman, a terror to counterfeits, a down-right softy when he encounters an honest man – or woman.

This article tells much of his life story and provides a blow-by-blow as to what his days were like. One of the more interesting aspects of the article addressed the charities that were designed to aid and comfort those many souls who worked as extras in the movies. Today, extra players (also known as ‘atmosphere) are extended benefits through the Screen Actors Guild – but this was not always the case.

1945 Hollywood
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

A swell article that truly catches the spirit of the time. You will read about the war-torn Hollywood that existed between the years 1941-1945 and the movie shortage, the hair-pin rationing, the rise of the independent producers and the ascent of Van Johnson and Lauren Becall:

Lauren, a Warner Brothers property, is a blonde-haired chick with a tall, hippy figure, a voice that sounds like a sexy foghorn and a pair of so-what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it eyes

Mention is also made of the hiring of demobilized U.S. combat veterans to serve as technical assistants for war movies in such films as Objective Burma.

‘Celebrity Services”
(Pageant Magazine, 1945)

Earl Blackwell and Ted Strong founded a curious institution that they called Celebrity Services, Inc. in 1938 – figuring, as they did, that

Today America has more celebrities than it can keep track of and Celebrity Services aims, simply, to keep track of them.

Celebrity Services’ office is a busy hodge-podge of files, cross-files, indices, cards folders, stuffed pigeonholes, telephones, confidential memos address books, private dossiers and fat envelopes – all pertaining to the lives of 50,000 celeb-utopians.

A’ is for Acting
(People Today Magazine, 1955)

It was called the Universal-International School of Motion Picture Drama and it was established in 1948 (the year of it’s closing is not so easy to find). The school’s young students were all Universal contract players who had been chosen by legendary casting agent Robert Palmer; a few illustrious names from the alumni list include Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Shelley Winters, Jeff Chandler and Piper Laurie.

Although he is not listed as a student in that program, Clint Eastwood can clearly be seen in the center of the attached class photo.

The Marx Brothers & the Joke Development Process
(Stage Magazine, 1937)

A late Thirties article by Teet Carle (the old publicist for MGM) on how the brothers Marx figured out which gag created the biggest laughs; a few words about how the movies were tested in various cities prior to each release and how assorted jokes were recited to all manner of passersby for their effect.

Click here to read a 1951 article that Harpo Marx wrote about Groucho.

Mother of the Year: Joan Crawford
(Photoplay Magazine, 1948)

This article, I’m an Adopted Mother, by Hollywood movie actress Joan Crawford (1905 – 1977) rambles on column after column about her four adopted children and the tremendous fulfillment they brought to her life. It was all a bunch of hooey, and we might have ended up believing it all, if it weren’t for her daughter Christine, who, in 1978, published a bestselling memoir testifying to the beatings that the movie star could be depended upon to deliver regularly; a first edition of the book is available at Amazon – it was titled Mommy Dearest

Mickey Cohen in Hollywood
(Quick Magazine, 1949)

Illustrated with a photo of L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen and his wife, this short column from 1949 summarizes one of the many shake-down schemes that the thug would employ to blackmail Hollywood actors during their weaker moments.

John Barrymore
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)

John Barrymore (né John Sidney Blyth: 1882 – 1942) is said to have been one of America’s finest actors; co-star in an ensemble cast of thespians that consisted of his brother Lionel and sister Ethel, they were known around Broadway and Hollywood as the Barrymores. Today he is primarily known as the great-grandfather of Drew Barrymore (b. 1975). Although badly plagued by alcoholism, he managed to play his parts admirably – and those who knew him best both on the stage and off, remember him in this article.

A far more revealing article about Barrymore can be read here.

Marlon Brando
(Photoplay Magazine, 1955)

This is a three page PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE profile of method actor Marlon Brando (1924 – 2004) regarding the first eight years of his fame. Much of the column space is devoted to Brando’s friendship with Harry Belafonte and all the boyish pranks and general carousing that the two enjoyed during their (thankfully) brief salad days.

Samuel Goldwyn, Producer
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)

Screen scribe Sidney Carroll put to paper a serious column about the productive life of Samuel Goldwyn (1879 – 1974) and all that he had accomplished since he co-founded Hollywood (along with Cecil B. De Mille) in 1913:

He has done many remarkable things in 30 years. He has made as many stars as any man in the business; he was the first to make feature-length films; he was the first to bring the great writers to Hollywood… Goldwyn is the greatest maker of motion pictures ever to come out of Hollywood [with the exception of The Goldwyn Follies (1938)].

John Wayne
(Quick Magazine, 1949)

The attached three page article about John Wayne appeared at the very doorstep of the Fifties – the decade that was uniquely hisown. The uncredited Hollywood journalist who wrote this column was doing so in order to announce to the reading public that Wayne was coming remarkably close to being the top box office attraction:

Wayne reached this eminence by turning out film after film for 18 years. Working with a steady, un-nervous strength for four studios: Republic, RKO, Argosy and Warner Brothers. – he shifts back and forth between Westerns, sea-epics and war pictures. With each movie he makes (most of them re-hashes of of standard action-film plots, but a few of them film classics), his fans grow.

The Ronald Reagan-Jane Wyman Crack-Up
(Photoplay Magazine, 1948)

A printable article from a 1948 Hollywood fan magazine that illustrated quite clearly how much easier Ronald Reagan had it with the Soviet Union, when compared to his failings with his first bride, Jane Wyman (1917 – 2007). The PHOTOPLAY journalist, Gladys Hall, outlined nicely how busy the couple had been up to that time yet remarked that they had had a difficult time since the war ended, breaking-up and reconciling as many as three times. In 1948 Wyman, who had been married twice before, filed for divorce on charges of mental cruelty; the divorce was finalized in ’49 and the future president went on to meet Nancy Davis in 1951 (marrying in ’52); click here if you wish to read a 1951 article about that courtship.

Historically, Ronald Reagan was the first divorced man to ascend the office of the presidency. Shortly after his death in 2004, Wyman remarked:

America has lost a great president and a great, kind, and gentle man.

Click here read an article about Hollywood’s war on monogamy.

Natalie Wood
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

This is one of the first profiles of Hollywood beauty and former child star Natalie Wood (1938 – 1981).

The journalist went into some details explaining how she was discovered at the age of five by the director Irving Pichel (1891 – 1954) and how it all steadily snowballed into eighteen years of semi-steady work that provided her with a invaluable Hollywood education (and subsequently creating a thoroughly out-of-control teenager).

At sixteen, Natalie co-starred with the late James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, and the resulting Dean hysteria swept her forward with him… She cannot bear to be alone. She is full of reasonless fears. Of airplanes. Of snakes. Of swimming in the ocean.