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Mobsters and Movie Stars: Crime, Punishment, and Hollywood Celebrity

Jon Lewis

in Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles

In postwar Hollywood, mobsters, moguls, and movie stars commingled frequently and often carelessly. Professional encounters were commonplace given the mob’s involvement in the organization of the ... More

In postwar Hollywood, mobsters, moguls, and movie stars commingled frequently and often carelessly. Professional encounters were commonplace given the mob’s involvement in the organization of the movie industry’s labor force. Film workers and gangsters routinely crossed paths at nightclubs, bars, clandestine gambling establishments, and private parties where interactions were complicated by alcohol and illicit drugs, human trafficking (prostitution) and the occasional “badger” or blackmail plot. The moral here is fairly simple, at least in retrospect. The movie stars -- and circling about them the many movie aspirants, wannabes, and sycophants -- were always playing at things, trying on roles, aliases, lovers, identities, fads. But the gangsters in the strictest sense of the expression “meant business.” And that was something folks who trucked in the world of make believe failed to appreciate and understand.Less

Seasoned Professional

Christina Rice

in Ann Dvorak: Hollywood's Forgotten Rebel

This chapter covers the final films of Dvorak’s career, including A Life of Her Own, starring Lana Turner and directed by George Cukor, and I Was a American Spy, one of Ann’s few starring roles, in ... More

This chapter covers the final films of Dvorak’s career, including A Life of Her Own, starring Lana Turner and directed by George Cukor, and I Was a American Spy, one of Ann’s few starring roles, in which she played real-life war hero Claire Phillips. Also discussed is some of Ann’s early work in television and a vice raid that took place at one of her properties while she was vacationing in Europe.Less

Power off-screen

Gillian Kelly

in Tyrone Power: Gender, Genre and Image in Classical Hollywood Cinema

This final chapter uses extrafilmic material, such as fan magazines, to explore the construction and development of Power’s off-screen image throughout his career. The careful manufacture of star ... More

This final chapter uses extrafilmic material, such as fan magazines, to explore the construction and development of Power’s off-screen image throughout his career. The careful manufacture of star images was a device used by studios to attract audiences to films, and ultimately sell tickets and Power received extensive publicity from early on, fan magazines depicting his off-screen life in ways that often resonated with his on-screen persona, particularly in the 1930s. This chapter explores the development of Power’s off-screen image in fan magazines from his bachelor days in the 1930s, his marriage to French actress Annabella and subsequent divorce when he returned from active war duty. His high-profile romance with Lana Turner preceded his marriage to Mexican actress Linda Christian and the birth of their two daughters, before another divorce and remarriage just before his death in 1958. Magazines then ran stories of his sudden death and subsequent birth of his only son, Tyrone Power Jr, a few months later for months to come. Additionally, while Power’s professional acting career began in the theatre in 1933, he returned to regular stage work in the 1950s in a move that was mostly well received by critics as the chapter discusses.Less

The Conversation

in Nixon at the Movies: A Book about Belief

Richard Nixon just loved going to the movies, and like any other devoted moviegoer, there were movies such he enjoyed going to see even more than others. Richard Nixon saw two Lana Turner films while ... More

Richard Nixon just loved going to the movies, and like any other devoted moviegoer, there were movies such he enjoyed going to see even more than others. Richard Nixon saw two Lana Turner films while president, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). Nixon's awareness that all this moviegoing might call into question how hard he worked, something he took inordinate pride in, makes all the more striking that he should have nonetheless managed to spend so much time watching movies. The presidency would mean neither an interruption nor a reduction in Nixon's pursuing his love of the movies; rather, it allowed him to wallow in watching. The movies he saw were a happily magpie miscellany, as varied in genre and date as they were in quality.Less