•Star Maps
by Stephen SchochetSince movie stars have moved into the big mansions of Beverly Hills and Bel-Air, vendors have sold maps of their homes with varying accuracy. Although most stars resent unwanted intrusions of fans, many take it with good humor. Sitting in his swimming pool, Oliver Hardy would welcome fans who climbed over his fence. Hey, How about a dip? In the earliest days, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks would drive up next to people with star maps and ask them for directions....
•The Warner Brothers Make Noise
by: Stephen Schochet
Hollywood was an attractive place for the early filmmakers to settle, full of good weather, orange and lemon trees. For producers who owed money on borrowed camera equipment if a creditor came after them, they could hide among the trees. It was a hard business full of causalities and took a pirate's mentality to survive. Most of the studio heads were from poor backgrounds, with limited English skills and never forgot their childhood or a personal slight. Included were...
•Hollywood Horse Stories
by Stephen SchochetA recent Hollywood rumor was that Tobey Maguire injured his back during the making of Sea Biscuit doing horseback riding scenes, making him unable to star in the sequel to Spider-Man. Although it turned out to be false, he rode a mechanical horse in the film, many actors have had close calls working with horses. One example was Michael Caine, whose first movie Zulu (1964) required him to ride a horse after a hunting expedition, which after several embarrassing takes...
•In Hollywood As In Life You Never Reach The Top
by Stephen SchochetWhen Jim Carey was paid $20,000,000 for The Cable Guy, a record breaking salary for a movie star, John Travolta topped him by asking for $20,000,001 for the movie Michael and got it. But there is always someone who makes more than you. John Travolta was invited to Robin William's birthday party in Northern California. He arrived there in his Lear Jet and was greeted by a cigar smoking Steven Spielberg, who had suggested he take the Michael role in the first place, and his...
•Shirley Temple Stories
by: Stephen Schochet
When the Twentieth Century Pictures company had their expensive merger with the Fox Film Corporation in 1935, studio head Daryl Zanuck was depending on two contract stars to pull the new company through its money troubles. Tragedy struck the same year when Will Rogers died in a plane crash in Alaska. Zanuck turned his financial burden on the shoulders of six year old Shirley Temple (she was actually seven but wouldn't find that out till she was twelve).
Fox had...
•Can I Have Your Autograph?
?
by: Stephen Schochet
Being a celebrity means dealing with fan demands for autographs, ranging from polite and appropriate to rude and overbearing. One time Katherine Hepburn was performing on Broadway and tried to exit backstage through a crowd of jostling autograph hounds. Bodyguards helped her to her limo and once safely inside the very private star rolled down the window and shouted, Run em down! We'll clean up the blood later! The crowd scattered and the limousine sped away, pausing...
•When Stars Collide
by: Stephen Schochet
During the silent era it was thought a waste of money to make a movie with more than one star. Personalities like Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton were considered potent enough box office on their own. But with dwindling attendance during the great depression MGM decided to feature Hollywood's first all star ensemble cast in Grand Hotel (1932) starring the mammoth egos of Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore and Greta Garbo. The director Edmund...
•Bob Hope Wasn't The Only One Who Used Idiot Cards
by: Stephen Schochet
When Bob Hope moved into television, he lost the opportunity to hold his script in his hand , something he had gotten used to working in radio. The presentation would look too stiff to his audience. He tried to memorize his monologues, but that proved to be too cumbersome of a task and it took away from his golf game. The solution was cue cards, or idiot cards as they are known in the industry. This worked well for the performer, but was hazardous for others. On one of...
•Wild Casting
by Stephen SchochetCan you imagine Doris Day as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967)? That's who producer Joseph E. Levine wanted before Miss Day turned it down thinking the part in bad taste, and it went to Anne Bancroft. How about James Cagney as Robin Hood in 1938? A contract dispute caused Warner Bros. to drop him and hire Errol Flynn instead. Do you know that Margaret Mitchell wanted Groucho Marx to play Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind (1939)? But perhaps the wildest casting choice...
•Strange Encounters With Hollywood Legends
by: Stephen Schochet
Meeting famous people is often a surreal experience for both parties. In 1956 when Elvis Presley arrived in Hollywood he and his entourage stayed at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. One day he got into the elevator. What floor? asked the operator. Tenth please. The operator looked at him with disdain. You can't go up to the tenth floor. Elvis is staying there. No one is allowed there. A bemused Presley said, I know. I'm Elvis. The hotel employee stared at him...
| 
