Classic Cinema Gold

“What is your motto Mr. Valentino? Live and Let Live.” ~ Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino
(May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926)

“Women are not in love with me but with the picture of me on the screen. I am merely the canvas upon which the women paint their dreams.” ~ Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

“To generalize on women is dangerous. To specialize in them is infinitely worse.” ~ Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino in “Blood and Sand” (1922)

“I really believe i was happier when i slept on a park bench in Central Park than during all the years of the `perfect lover` stuff.`” ~ Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino with Gloria Swanson in
“Beyond the Rocks” (1922)

“I am beginning to look more and more like my miserable imitators.” ~ Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino with Vilma Banky in
“The Son of the Sheik” (1926)

“A man should control his life. Mine is controlling me.” ~ Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino with his wife Natacha Rambova

“Some people think I look like a sweet potato, I consider myself a spud with a heart of gold.” ~ Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine (born April 24, 1934) is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author.

“I’m not unaware of how I’m perceived, I just don’t care about it. Unless I really hurt someone’s feelings. I care about that.” ~ Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine a multi award winning actress including six Golden Globes, an Emmy, and an Oscar.

“An actor has many lives and many people within him. I know there are lots of people inside me. No one ever said I’m dull.” ~ Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine at the American Film Festival of Deauville (Normandy, France) September 1987.

“I was always a character actress and never a sex symbol. Even when I was the leading lady, I was a character actor.” ~ Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine, Central Park, New York. August, 1955

“I’ve made so many movies playing a hooker that they don’t pay me in the regular way anymore. They leave it on the dresser.” ~ Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon in “The Apartment” (1960)

“I do miss the stage. There’s nothing like it, nothing. When I did my one-woman show and played the Palace and played the Gershwin and all that, I did – what? – eight shows or maybe more a week. Of course you can’t do anything else, and you can’t run quickly for a cab in the rain, and you can’t have a drunken love affair. You can’t do any of that. Because you’ve got to be perfectly healthy. And I guess I value enjoying my life a little bit more than the discipline these days.” ~ Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine (center) with Audrey Hepburn and Director William Wyler on the set of “The Children´s Hour” (1961)

“I regret turning down the lead role in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) which Ellen Burstyn deservedly won an Oscar for. I said to myself: “Who is this Martin Scorsese person?”.” ~ Shirley MacLaine in a 2005 New York Times interview.

Shirley MacLaine, Glenn Ford and director George Marshall on the set of the “The Sheepman” (1958)

“I love to win those things. Love it. The only part about it I don’t like is the red carpet and getting a dress and walking around in high heels and holding in my stomach. I hate that.” ~ Shirley MacLaine on the Oscars (Academy Awards).

Shirley MacLaine with her Academy Award for Best Actress in 1983 for her role as Aurora Greenway in “Terms of Endearment” (1983)

“It is useless to hold a person to anything he says while he’s in love, drunk, or running for office.” ~ Shirley MacLaine

Howard Keel was an American actor and singer who starred in some of the most famous MGM film musicals ever made. Keel is probably best remembered by modern audiences for his starring role in the CBS television series “Dallas” from 1981 to 1991, as Clayton Farlow, opposite Barbara Bel Geddes’s character Miss Ellie Ewing.

Howard Keel
(April 13, 1919 – November 7, 2004)
Actor and singer appeared in some of MGM’s greatest musicals from the 1950s.

Keel was born Harold Clifford Keel on April 13, 1919 in Gillespie, Illinois, to a hard drinking ex-Navy man turned coal miner Homer Keel and his wife, Grace Osterkamp Keel. Young Keel spent his childhood in poverty and after his father’s death in 1930, Keel and his mother moved to California, where he graduated from Fallbrook High School at age 17. He worked various odd jobs until he found work during WWII at Douglas Aircraft in Los Angeles. Keel’s naturally untrained voice was discovered by the staff of the aircraft company and soon he was performing at various entertainments for the company’s clients. He was inspired to sing professionally one day while attending a Hollywood Bowl concert, and quickly advanced through the musical ranks from singing waiter to music festival contest winner to guest recitalist. Oscar Hammerstein II ‘discovered’ Keel in 1946 during John Raitt’s understudy auditions for the role of Billy Bigelow in Broadway’s popular musical “Carousel” and was immediately signed for the role. Keel managed to understudy Alfred Drake as Curly in “Oklahoma!” as well, and in 1947 took over the rustic lead in the London production, earning great success. British audiences took to the charismatic singer and he remained there as a concertist while making his non-singing film debut in the British crime drama “The Hideout” (1949).

Howard Keel and Betty Hutton from “Annie Get Your Gun” (1950)

With the onset of film musicals becoming such huge fare in the United States, MGM was looking for an answer to Warner Brother’s Gordon MacRae when they discovered Keel in England. MGM offered him a contract and he returned to the United States, changing his stage name to Howard Keel. Keel became a musical film star with his very first role, playing sharpshooter Frank Butler opposite brassy Betty Hutton’s Annie Oakley in the film version of the Broadway musical “Annie Get Your Gun” (1950). After the great success of “Annie Get Your Gun” Keel would be showcased in several of MGM’s biggest and most classic musical extravaganzas; “Show Boat” (1951) with Kathryn Grayson and Ava Gardner, “Kiss Me Kate” (1953) with Kathryn Grayson and Ann Miller, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (1954) opposite Jane Powell, and “Kismet” (1955) opposite Ann Blyth. On loan to Warner Brothers in 1953, Keel played Wild Bill Hickok in “Calamity Jane”, a highly popular Oscar winning musical starring Doris Day in one of her most famous screen roles. The film was Warner Brothers’ answer to “Annie Get Your Gun” and included the smash hit song “Secret Love”.

Howard Keel with Esther Williams from the MGM musical “Pagan Love Song” (1950)

With the decline of popularity in musicals in the late ’50s, MGM did not renew Keel’s contract. The musical star managed to stay busy, moving effortlessly into rugged, if somewhat routine action fare, appearing in such 1960s films as “Armored Command” (1961), “Waco” (1966), “Red Tomahawk” (1967) and “The War Wagon” (1967), which starred John Wayne and featuring Keel as a wisecracking Indian. During 1970s Keel returned to his musical roots, resumed a routine of nightclub, cabaret and summer stock jobs. Some of his summer stock and touring productions included “Camelot,” “South Pacific,” “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” “Man of La Mancha,” and “Show Boat,” often reuniting him with some of his former MGM leading ladies, including Kathryn Grayson and Jane Powell. He also worked a Las Vegas nightclub act with Kathryn Grayson in the 1970s.

Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Joe E. Brown, Agnes Moorehead, Ava Gardner, and Robert Sterling in a promo for “Show Boat” (1951)

Howard Keel also made many television appearances with his first in 1957 on the TV series “Zane Grey Theatre”. Other television appearances include television movie adaptations of “Roberta” (1958), “Kiss Me Kate” (1964), and in TV series such as “Death Valley Days”, “The Red Skelton Hour”, “Here’s Lucy”, “Fantasy Island”, “The Love Boat”, “Murder She Wrote”, and “Walker Texas Ranger”. In 1980, Keel became a household name when he joined the hit television show “Dallas” as the dignified and hot-tempered oil baron Clayton Farlow. Keel started with an appearance during the fourth season with his character being meant as a semi-replacement for the patriarch from the series’ Jock Ewing played by Jim Davis, who had recently died. However, his portrayal of Clayton Farlow was such a hit among viewers that Keel was made a series regular and stayed on until “Dallas” ended in 1991.

Howard Keel and Jane Powell (center) with the rest of the cast from “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (1954)

Howard Keel was married three times. His first marriage was to actress Rosemary Cooper in 1943. That marriage ended in divorce in 1948. His second marriage was to Helen Anderson in 1948. They had three children together, two daughters, Kaija Liane (born 1950) and Kirstine Elizabeth (born 1952), and a son, Gunnar Louis (born 1955). Keel and Anderson divorced in 1970. Later in 1970, Keel married his third wife Judy Keel who was twenty five years his junior. They had one child together, a daughter, Leslie Grace (born 1974). The couple remained married for thirty four years until his death in 2004.

Howard Keel with Linda Gray in a 1981 publicity photo for “Dallas”.

Howard Keel died November 7, 2004 at his Palm Desert home six weeks after being diagnosed with colon cancer. He was cremated and his ashes scattered at three of his favorite places: Mere Golf Club,Cheshire, England; Liverpool, England’s John Lennon Airport; and Tuscany, Italy.

“I know I’m not an easy person to get along with, I’m no walk in the park.” ~ Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando
(April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004)

“I put on an act sometimes, and people think I’m insensitive. Really, it’s like a kind of armour because I’m too sensitive. If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn’t like me, I’ve got to get out.” ~ Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando

“I’m not going to lay myself at the feet of the American public and invite them into my soul. My soul is a private place. And I have some resentment of the fact that I live in a system where you have to do that.” ~ Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando

“The only reason I’m in Hollywood is that I don’t have the moral courage to refuse the money.” ~ Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando

“If I hadn’t been an actor, I’ve often thought I’d have become a con man and wound up in jail.” ~ Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando

“An actor’s a guy who, if you ain’t talking about him, ain’t listening.” ~ Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando

“I’m just another son-of-a-bitch sitting in a motor home on a film set and they come looking for Zeus.” ~ Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando

“The only thing an actor owes his public is not to bore them.” ~ Marlon Brando

Happy Birthday Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds

Actresses, singers, dancers, entertainers, and good friends Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds were born on the same day three years apart. Jane Powell was born April 1, 1929 and Debbie Reynolds was born April 1, 1932. Both signed as teenagers with different studios, Powell with MGM and Reynolds with Warner Brothers. After Warner Brothers didn’t resign Reynolds, she signed with MGM and by the mid-1950s was a major star. Some of her films of note were “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), “Tammy and the Bachelor” (1957), and “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (1964). Powell also had great success with MGM, starring in classic musicals such as “Royal Wedding” (1951), with Fred Astaire, “A Date with Judy” (1948), with friend Elizabeth Taylor, and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (1954), with Howard Keel. The two beautiful and talented stars appeared in three movies together “Two Weeks With Love” (1950), “Athena” (1954), and “Hit the Deck” (1955). After their movie careers slowed, Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds both went on to enjoy successful stage and television careers.

Jane Powell
born April 1, 1929

Debbie Reynolds
born April 1, 1932

Ann Miller, Debbie Reynolds, and Jane Powell in “Hit the Deck” (1955)

Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell share April 1st Birthdays

Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds, both born April 1st, celebrate their birthdays on the set of “Two Weeks With Love” (1950) with costars Louis Calhern, Tommy Rettig, Gary Gray and Ann Harding.