“Glamour is what I sell, it’s my stock in trade. Glamour is assurance. It is a kind of knowing that you are all right in every way, mentally and physically and in appearance, and that whatever the occasion or the situation, you are equal to it. You can’t live without illusions, even if you must fight for them.”
Remembering screen legend Marlene Dietrich on her birthday…
Born Marie Magdalene Dietrich on December 27th, 1901 in Berlin, Germany
Died on May 6th, 1992 (age 90) in Paris, France
❤
A gay man of a certain age and a certain sensibility searching for meaning in the flickering images of classic Hollywood. IG:@erinmatthiesen
Vivien Leigh, London, c.1936
Alan Ladd as “Philip Raven” in a publicity photo for This Gun For Hire (Frank Tuttle, 1942). This is the film that, after eight years kicking around Hollywood, would make him a star. Film audiences and fans went wild for him, and Paramount quickly put him together with Veronica Lake again for The Glass Key, another big hit.
A photo by Arnold Newman, Baltimore, Maryland, 1939
Tyrone Power and Norma Shearer photographed on the set of Marie Antoinette, 1938, one of the most elaborate and expensive films MGM had attempted up to that time.
Gypsy Rose Lee, photo by George Hurrell, Hollywood, 1930′s
(Source: ruihenriquesesteves)
Variety (E.A. Dupont, 1925)
A German silent film also known as Jealousy or Vaudeville (the original title was Varieté). The director Erwald André Dupont was a pioneer of the German film industry. He was especially known for innovative camerawork. Being Jewish, he emigrated to the US in 1933 where, like with many European film artists forced to emigrate because of the Nazis, his talents were sadly underused by Hollywood. By the 1950s’ he was writing and directing episodes of crime dramas for television and B-pictures like The Neanderthal Man.
(Source: filmforfancy)
Marlene Dietrich in Knight Without Armour (Jacques Feyder, 1937)
(Source: filmforfancy)
Gene Kelly, c.1946
“It’s true I didn’t want to be a dancer. What I really wanted to be was a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Then at 14 I discovered girls, and began to study dancing diligently. At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship. Only later did I discover you dance joy. You dance love. You dance dreams. Of course, the Pittsburgh Pirates lost a hell of a shortstop.”
Lauren Bacall, 1945, photo by John Rawlings
Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray in Above Suspicion (Richard Thorpe, 1943)
Christmas trees in Rockefeller Center, photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt, New York, 1938