movie star

1920s Screen Stars: Ina Claire

1920s Screen Stars: Ina Claire

Ina Claire was best known as a Broadway actress, but she also made movies between 1915 and 1943. She was born Ina Fagan in 1893, and first made her name on stage by doing impersonations of other people – something for which she had a great talent. Apparently a young F. Scott Fitzgerald fell madly(…)

1940s Screen Icons: Gene Tierney

1940s Screen Icons: Gene Tierney

Brooklyn-born Tierney was a leading actress in 1940s Hollywood. She started out her adult life as a socialite, before becoming bored with the social scene and pursuing a career as a stage actress (her family thought being a ‘proper’ actress was more respectable than being in the movies). Her Broadway career started in a pretty(…)

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Judy Garland

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Judy Garland

Judy Garland is one of those movie stars that everyone is aware of, even if it’s just becaue they watch The Wizard of Oz every Christmas (surely everyone has seen that movie, haven’t they?). Everyone remembers the happy, talented girl on screen, but not so many are aware of the tragedy of her life which was filled(…)

1920s Style Icons: The Ever-Dramatic Pola Negri

1920s Style Icons: The Ever-Dramatic Pola Negri

Pola Negri was a Polish silent movie star of the 1920s. She was famous for both her roles as a femme fatale and her tragic roles and, ever the drama queen, she never hesitated to use her personal life to boost her career having high-profile relationships with some of the biggest movie stars of the(…)

1940s Movie Icons: Ida Lupino

1940s Movie Icons: Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino was a British actress and director who appeared in over 50 movies as well as becoming a pioniering and prolific director. She started her movie career working out of Teddington Studios in England in the early 1930s and moved to Hollywood in 1933. She continued to work in Hollywood throughout the 30s and(…)

1960s Style Icons: Nancy Kwan

1960s Style Icons: Nancy Kwan

Nancy Kwan was one of the first EuroAsian-American actresses to play major roles in Hollywood movies. Born in Hong Kong she became a movie actress and sex symbol in the 1960s and was nicknamed the ‘Chinese Bardot’.  Born in 1939 to a Cantonese father and British mother and became the first significant Asian actress in(…)

1930s Style Icons: Bette Davis

1930s Style Icons: Bette Davis

Bette Davis’ Hollywood career spanned an incredible six decades, but it was her style in the 1930s and 40s combined with her uncompromising movie roles which cemented her as a movie icon. She was no classic Hollywood beauty, and flatly refused to comply with the ideals of the studios, once claiming: ‘Hollywood wanted me to(…)

The height of Hollywood actresses: a star-studded lineup

The height of Hollywood actresses: a star-studded lineup

The height of Hollywood stars is something which has always fascinated me. I’m not sure why, but actresses always seem taller than they actually are (perhaps because they’re projected onto an enormous screen!). I had no idea that I was the same height as Marilyn Monroe, or that Veronica Lake was a diminutive 4’11”. Veronica(…)

‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’: Evelyn Nesbit

‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’: Evelyn Nesbit

For a few years in the early 20th Century, Evelyn Nesbit was considered the Most Beautiful Girl in the World. If you would like to find out more about her and her tragic life I would recommend this article by Caviglia’s Cabinet of Curiosities