An MGM crew member once said of Jean Harlow, “We weren’t just workers on her set, we were real to her. If you were sick, she was the first one to notice. The first one to send flowers.” She was also the first one to tell her director ‘Let’s work late tonight so the boys … Continue reading HARLOW’S HOLLYWOOD – AN INTERVIEW WITH DARRELL ROONEY & MARK VIEIRA
Lois Moran was, briefly, an actress in silent films. But she is better known for the literary character she inspired: the vivacious red-headed starlet Rosemary Hoyt in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1934 novel Tender is the Night. Fitzgerald became enamored with Moran, whom he called the most ‘beautiful girl in Hollywood,’ and carried on an intense … Continue reading Out of the Vaults: Lois Moran
So I finally got my hands on a copy of Taschen’s new Los Angeles, Portrait of a City and have been thoroughly giddy with delight at this truly epic retrospective. Kevin Starr of USC is my personal favorite California historian and his insightful essays give this ever-so-beautiful pictorial history the sort of depth and complexity … Continue reading Los Angeles: Portrait of a City
The Kitty Packard Pictorial is absolutely thrilled to introduce a brand-new feature designed to and promote creative expression amongst Pictorial readers: The Pictorial Press. The Pictorial Press will feature original prose, serials, poetry and critical essays from you, the Pictorial public. Since The Kitty Packard Pictorial is a lifestyle blog that fuses past with present, … Continue reading Announcing: The Pictorial Press
On Monday, the Guardian tipped me off to Spacesicks’ I Can Read Movies series. Since this project has been up since the January, I am feeling woefully unhip over the fact that I have just discovered the wide, wonderful, dizzying world of Spacekick. I actually don’t know QUITE how to describe this mind-bending experience so … Continue reading I Can Read Movies
On Monday, the Guardian tipped me off to Spacesicks’ I Can Read Movies series. Since this project has been up since the January, I am feeling woefully unhip over the fact that I have just discovered the wide, wonderful, dizzying world of Spacekick. I actually don’t know QUITE how to describe this mind-bending experience so … Continue reading I Can Read Movies
The same brand of white-hot prose and ever-so-clever historical fudging that made Glen David Gold’s magical Carter Beats the Devil a critical and popular smash, is alive and well in Sunnyside. Gold’s second novel is a sprawling, intricately crafted telling of the birth of celebrity culture in 20th century America and its worldwide sociological ramifications, … Continue reading Kitty Packard Lit Pick: Sunnyside
What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting By Marc Norman Three Rivers Press List price: $17.95 Brawling, boozing, brilliance and all manner of ballyhoo swirl around like a brandy in a snifter in this deliciously vivid, vibrant and endlessly fascinating work from Marc Norman. F Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda running amok at Hollywood parties, … Continue reading Packard Lit Pick: What Happens Next? A History of Hollywood Screenwriting
Who says that no one in LA reads? At least the fine folks at Jacket Copy do, the LA Times most excellent book blog. They recently posted a great review of Jeffery Vance’s Douglas Fairbanks biography , a delicious excerpt from T.C. Boyle’s The Women (Frank Lloyd Wright and the women who loved him) and … Continue reading Jacket Copy: LA Times Book Blog
I adore early 20th century magazine cartoons. They’re silly, yes, but ever so pointed and do they ever call a spade a gosh darn spade. Looking through my collecion of old magazines I came across this Life magazine from 1924 (back then it was more of a fiction & poetry journal instead rather than the … Continue reading Life Magazine 1924 Cartoons – What Makes Actors So Darn Special?
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