Actors
25 Actors Who Transitioned From TV to Movies — And Vice Versa
In the first two decades of television, many a star from Hollywood’s Golden Age found both a warm reception and a welcome paycheck on the small screen as their movie careers were waning. That move happens almost as frequently today with paid cable series enjoying immense popularity.
History
Why “The Best Years of Our Lives” Remains Our Best Drama About War
Recently I was asked to name the five movies that most affected me growing up. In identifying them, I didn’t think too hard. This required more of an emotional, instinctual response than a purely rational one. “The Best Years of Our Lives” was one of the films I selected. It has always stayed with me. While I cannot claim it’s the all-time best war movie, I think it may be our best drama about war. This intensely human film portrays the effects and aftermath of war, but includes no battle scenes.
Actors
Gone Too Soon — Why the Sudden Death of Carole Lombard Still Hurts
At age 33, Carole Lombard had it all. She was one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood, and happily married to its biggest male star: Clark Gable. She had proven herself one of the industry’s top comediennes, but her beauty and talent could extend to serious roles too. Only good things lay ahead.
Directors
How Saul Bass Transformed Opening Movie Credits Forever
His name is seldom invoked today, but if you compiled any list of innovators who’d actually changed the shape of movies, it would have to include Saul Bass.
Actors
How Jack Palance Achieved Immortality With a Gun and a Few Push-Ups
Few will ever forget this year’s Oscars, when Faye Dunaway read off the wrong card and mistakenly announced “La La Land” as Best Picture winner. Awkward as that was, there have been other memorably offbeat moments in Oscar history.
Actors
How Bill Murray Forged His Own Path- And Prevailed
Today there are certainly bigger stars in Hollywood than Bill Murray, but few if any command the cult-like devotion and fascination that he does from his fans.
Actors
The Sizzle of Cyd Charisse — Hollywood’s Dynamite Dancer
Fred Astaire called her “beautiful dynamite.” After nearly a decade in films, it was hardly surprising that she finally broke through playing a vamp who ensnares Gene Kelly in the immortal “Gotta Dance” sequence from “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Directors
John Ford — The Bright and Dark Sides to the Finest Director in History
This once-famous name may be unfamiliar to millennials, but even those with the remotest interest in film should discover him and his astounding body of work. Among the top directors who have credited him as a direct influence on their work: Ingmar Bergman (who described him as “the best director in the world”), Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Elia Kazan, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg.
Biographical
Fallen Star: How Montgomery Clift Self-Destructed
By the age of thirty, Montgomery Clift seemed to have everything: youth, beauty, talent, and the prospect of a lucrative film career with limitless possibilities. Along with his friend and colleague Marlon Brando, Clift was the most visible and gifted of a new generation of movie star who’d been trained in “the Method” at Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio. The Studio’s fundamental goal was to help actors inhabit their characters more fully in order to achieve greater realism and intensity in their performances.