The first time I met Fred Astaire, I hated him. Except I didn’t know him as Fred Astaire, I knew him as Ted Hanover, the conceited hoofer in Holiday Inn who kept stealing the girlfriends of the man who was supposedly his best friend, Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby). My poor, six-year-old heart felt so sad… Read more »
We don’t talk about Esther Williams enough. That’s basically what I’ve been shouting from the rooftops ever since I started learning about Esther in 2013, after her death at the age of 91 encouraged me to take notice of the remarkable life and career of the woman deemed the Million Dollar Mermaid. As a longtime… Read more »
“Show business isn’t just scenery, lights, greasepaint and glitter, it’s heart. Because if your show hasn’t got a heart, you haven’t got a show. That’s what I tried to convey when I wrote the song ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business.’” — Irving Berlin If it weren’t for the presence of Marilyn Monroe, what would… Read more »
The cinema of Vincente Minnelli (1903-1986) can be divided into three categories in terms of genre: he made musicals, melodramas, and marriage comedies. Though the pictures in each of these camps differ from one another in tone and technique, it’s always been particularly easy for those of us who love Minnelli to unite them without… Read more »
Have you ever seen a performance that immediately became seared on your brain, a performance so extraordinary and visceral that just thinking about it gives you goosebumps? If you haven’t, I have one recommendation for you: Judy Garland in 1954’s A Star is Born. With the role of Esther Blodgett, Judy was able to showcase… Read more »
I fell in love with Van Johnson on a summer day in 2008. It wasn’t a moment I was expecting, but as I watched an underrated romantic comedy called Three Guys Named Mike, I felt my eyes lighting up the moment a freckle-faced scientist named Mike Lawrence appeared on the screen. Lost in a book… Read more »