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I’ve been putting off taping the ‘72 Paramount’s bars for maybe two seasons! I’m sure this will feel weird tomorrow as I’ve gotten used to bare metal on the tops.
Some genuine Paramounts here, but there are two impostors. Pictured in a wet Tredegar, this line up at Park View, taken sometime in 1987, includes Hills B618 CKG; MHB 850P; A775 WHB; RNY 304Y; OWO 906M and C233 HTX. The Paramount impostors are of course MHB and OWO, which carried Supreme III and Elite III bodies respectively. Whilst Hills treated a few Plaxton Elites and Supreme III coaches to the newer style Supreme IV front, these were the only two to receive a Paramount front as part of a mid life refurbishment. B618 CKG was a 1985 12 metre Paramount 3500; A775 WHB was a 1984 12 metre Paramount 3200; RNY 304Y was a 1982 11 metre Paramount 3200 Express (the first Paramount for the company), whilst C233 HTX was a 1986 12 metre Paramount 3200LS.
Big German collectors card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Paramount. Baby LeRoy embarks on a tour of the Paramount studios in a cart pulled by two dogs, Mutt and Jeff, Hollywood, circa 1934.
Baby LeRoy (1932-2001) was Hollywood's most famous toddler. When he was 16 months old, he became the youngest person ever put under term contract by a major studio. Between 1933 and 1935 he starred in nine films, always as a baby. These included A Bedtime Story (1933) with Maurice Chevalier, Alice in Wonderland (1933) and Torch Singer (1933). He is best known for his appearances in three W.C. Fields films: Tillie and Gus (1933), The Old Fashioned Way (1934) and It's a Gift (1934).
Baby LeRoy was born in 1932 in Los Angeles, as Ronald Le Roy Overacker. Aged six months, he made his screen debut in A Bedtime Story (Norman Taurog, 1933). The star of the film was Maurice Chevalier as a Parisian playboy who plays father to an abandoned, troublesome baby who severely diminishes his lovemaking activities. LeRoy's contract with Paramount had to be signed by his grandfather, as not only was Baby LeRoy underage but so was his 16-year-old mother. He was the youngest motion picture actor to receive star billing in such films as Alice in Wonderland (Norman Z. McLeod, 1933), a star-laden version of Lewis Carroll's novel, and the musical drama Torch Singer (Alexander Hall, George Somnes, 1933), starring Claudette Colbert. He co-starred with W.C. Fields in the comedies Tillie and Gus (Francis Martin, 1933), The Old Fashioned Way (William Beaudine, 1934) and It's a Gift (Norman Z. MacLeod, 1934). Fields recounted a difficult shooting day during Tillie and Gus where a short scene was repeatedly ruined by Baby LeRoy's crying until he surreptitiously devised a solution: "I quietly removed the nipple from Baby LeRoy's bottle, dropped in a couple of noggins of gin, and returned it to Baby LeRoy. After sucking on the pacifier for a few minutes, he staggered through the scene like a Barrymore." LeRoy is perhaps best remembered for a dinner table sequence in The Old Fashioned Way (1934) in which he throws a handful of custard into W.C. Fields's face, yanks on his nose, and destroys his pocket watch by tossing it into a bowl of molasses. Fields initially endures each of these indignities, but the scene ends with Fields spotting Baby LeRoy standing in a doorway and giving the toddler a kick to the rear end.
Baby Leroy is said to have retired from motion pictures at age 4, but four years later there was a final chapter of his film career. At age 8, LeRoy landed the lead role in Paramount's The Biscuit Eater (Stuart Heisler, 1940). This was to be his comeback film, after a two-year absence from the big screen. At age 6, he had appeared in a bit part as himself in the comedy short, Cinema Circus (Roy Rowland, 1937). He began filming the opening scene of The Biscuit Eater (1940) in October 1939. The scene called for Baby LeRoy to swing across a lake holding a rope, but he lost his grip and fell into the lake as the cameras rolled. This happened both times that the scene was attempted. As a result, Baby LeRoy became ill with a very bad cold. By the next day, he had lost his voice. As filming was on location in Albany, Georgia, and the crew and the rest of the cast could not wait the two weeks for the young actor to recover, as the doctor who examined LeRoy had determined, the film's director, Stuart Heisler, instead placed an emergency call to Paramount in Hollywood. Paramount wasted no time replacing Baby Leroy with another Paramount child actor, Billy Lee, who soon arrived with his father who was managing his career, while Baby LeRoy was sent back to Hollywood to recover from his illness, with a promise from Paramount that he would be given another lead role for another chance at a comeback. Unfortunately, that never materialised. Overacker became a merchant seaman and in 1957, as an adult, appeared as a guest challenger on the TV panel show To Tell the Truth. Ronald Le Roy Overacker died in 2001 in Van Nuys, California. He was 69.
Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Austin, TX- April 2019- The Paramount Theater on Congress Avenue. it was built in 1915. @andrea smith
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. W 68. Photo: Paramount.
Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) was an American actress, model and dancer. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong, realistic screen presence. By 1944 Stanwyck had become the highest-paid woman in the United States. She was a favourite of her directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra. After a short but notable career as a stage actress in the late 1920s, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood, before turning to television.
Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens in 1907 in Brooklyn, New York. She was the daughter of Catherine Ann (McPhee) and Byron E. Stevens, a bricklayer. Her mother died when she was accidentally knocked off a trolley by a drunk. Her father abandoned his children in the grief after the death of his wife. Barbara was brought up by her elder sister and was partially raised in foster homes. Later, she went to work at the local telephone company, but she had the urge to enter show business. At seventeen, she went to work as a showgirl. In 1928 Barbara moved to Hollywood, and proved to be an extremely versatile actress who could adapt to any role. Barbara was equally at home in all genres, from melodramas, such as Forbidden (Frank Capra, 1932) and Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937), to thrillers, such as Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944), also starring Fred MacMurray. She excelled in comedies such as Remember the Night (Mitchell Leisen, 1940) and The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941) and in Westerns, such as Union Pacific (Cecil B. DeMille, 1939).
Barbara Stanwyck was also well known for her TV roles as Victoria, the matriarch of the Barkley family in the Western series The Big Valley (1965). In 1983, she also played in the hit mini-series The Thorn Birds (1983), which did much to keep her in the eye of the public. She turned in an outstanding performance as Mary Carson. One of her last roles was in the hit drama series The Colbys (1985). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times, for Stella Dallas (1937), Ball of Fire (1941), Double Indemnity (1944) and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). For her television work, she won three Emmy Awards, for The Barbara Stanwyck Show (1961), The Big Valley (1966) and The Thorn Birds (1983). Her performance in The Thorn Birds also won her a Golden Globe. She received an Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Academy Award ceremony and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1986. She was also the recipient of honorary lifetime awards from the American Film Institute (1987), the Film Society of Lincoln Center (1986), the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (1981) and the Screen Actors Guild (1967). Barbara Stanwyck died in 1990, leaving 93 films and a host of TV appearances as her legacy. She was married twice, to film actors Frank Fay (1928-1935) and Robert Taylor (1939-1952). Her son, Dion Anthony 'Tony' Fay (1932) was adopted. Frank Fay and Stanwyck's marriage and their experience in Hollywood later became the basis of the Hollywood film A Star is Born. Their stormy marriage finally ended after a drunken brawl, during which he tossed their adopted son, Dion, into the swimming pool. Despite rumours of affairs with Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford, Stanwyck wed Robert Taylor, who had gay rumours of his own to dispel. Their marriage started off on a sour note when his possessive mother demanded he spend his wedding night with her rather than with Barbara. In 1957 Tony, her adopted son, was arrested for trying to sell lewd pictures while waiting to cash his unemployment check. When questioned by the press about his famous mother, he replied, "We don't speak." She saw him only a few times after his childhood.
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Three Stanways Paramounts in the yard at the end of the day, in March 2012, framed by two more of the type.
The former Kings Ferry Mercedes O303 (585 WKN, new as H16 KFC) is flanked by two Dennis Javelins with Brummie origins - J70 SWC was new as J110 VDA at Meadway, while JIG 3668 was new as F370 MUT at Pattersons.
All gone now, of course - the O303 was scrapped by its next owner, JIG was exported in 2015, and SWC was decaying in a yard in Hertfordshire a year or two back.
A detail view of the building's exterior and marquee.
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The Paramount Theatre, also known as the Paramount Arts Center, is located in Aurora, Illinois. It was designed by Rapp and Rapp in the Art Deco style with Venetian elements, and opened in 1931. Over the years, it has hosted films, plays, musicals, concerts, comedy shows, and other acts. It has been extensively renovated and restored, with great attention to maintaining historical accuracy in the beautiful auditorium.
Dutch postcard, no. 3499. Photo: Paramount. Olga San Juan in Blue Skies (Stuart Heisler, 1946).
American actress, dancer, and comedian Olga San Juan (1927-2009) was mainly active in films during the 1940s. San Juan was dubbed the 'Puerto Rican Pepperpot' or 'Beauty Siren' for singing and dancing roles alongside Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and many others.
Olga San Juan was born in Brooklyn, New York to Puerto Rican parents in 1927. When she was 3 years old, her family moved back to Puerto Rico, then moved back to the United States again a few years later. This time, they settled in 'Spanish Harlem'. While still a toddler, Olga was enrolled in both ballet and flamenco dancing classes and was encouraged to pursue a performing arts career by her stage mother. When she was eleven years old, she and five other school girls performed the Latin dance the Fandango for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She went on to perform at such Latin clubs as the Copacabana in New York City. She worked as a dancer with famed jazz and mambo musician, Tito Puente, who by then had earned the title of 'The King of Latin Music'. After talent scouts found her performing her popular night club act, Olga San Juan and Her Rumba Band, on radio, she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures in 1943. She appeared in a musical short film called Caribbean Romance (Lester Fuller, 1943) with Eric Blore. She possessed the same tiny frame and fervid temperament as Brazilian Carmen Miranda. Her film debut was followed by another short film called Bombalera (Noel Madison, 1945), which was nominated for an Oscar. She decided to become the first dyed-blonde Latin movie spitfire. In this, Olga was billed, appropriately enough, as 'The Cuban Cyclone'. She was front and center in her third short, The Little Witch (George Templeton, 1945), a musical romance in which she virtually played herself as a nightclub singer. Her first role in a feature film was in the musical comedy Rainbow Island (Ralph Murphy, 1944), starring Dorothy Lamour and Eddie Bracken.
Olga San Juan's breakthrough came after the war with the Technicolor musical Blue Skies (Stuart Heisler, 1946) with Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Joan Caulfield. San Juan performed several musical numbers (including 'Heat Wave') in the film, based on a story by Irving Berlin and showcasing his songs. Olga was paired up, engagingly, with another comedy scene-stealer, Billy De Wolfe. Next, she got a big part in the B-musical Variety Girl (George Marshall, 1947), also starring Mary Hatcher. Numerous Paramount Pictures contract players made cameos or performed songs in it, including Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. She next co-starred with Donald O'Connor in Are You With It? (Jack Hively, 1948), a musical comedy film about a young insurance man who quits his job to join a traveling carnival. Next, she had a supporting part in One Touch of Venus (William A. Seiter, 1948), starring Robert Walker, Ava Gardner, and Dick Haymes. This divine musical comedy was based on the Broadway musical of the same name, a book written by S. J. Perelman and Ogden Nash, with music composed by Kurt Weill. She often played the cute and spunky antagonist to other leading ladies. That same year, she won an Oscar nomination for The Countess of Monte Cristo (Fred de Cordova, 1948) which featured Sonja Henie in her final Hollywood ice extravaganza. The following year, San Juan could be seen in the romantic comedy The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (Preston Sturges, 1949) starring Betty Grable. The film, Sturges' first Technicolor production, was not well received at the time it was released, and was generally conceded to be a disaster – even Betty Grable bad-mouthed it – but its reputation has improved somewhat over time.
Olga San Juan, unfortunately, did not receive many leading lady opportunities in Hollywood, as she carried with her a heavy Latin accent despite growing up almost exclusively in America. In 1951, she starred on Broadway in the Lerner and Loewe musical, Paint Your Wagon. She won the Donaldson Award for her work in Paint Your Wagon. However, the show was a flop, running just eight months. Olga had left the cast before the run ended, after becoming pregnant with her second child. Years before she had met actor Edmond O'Brien at a publicity luncheon for Fox studios, and they were married in 1948. A devout Catholic, San Juan retired to raise their three children: the actors Brendan O'Brien, Maria O'Brien, and television producer Bridget O'Brien, who is married to Barry Adelman, executive producer of the Golden Globe Awards. In 1954, she returned to the screen with a bit part in the successful drama The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1954), starring Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, and Edmond O'Brien. For his performance, O'Brien won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe. She also played a small part in O'Brien's film The 3rd Voice (Hubert Cornfield, 1960). O'Brien and San Juan were married 28 years, until their divorce in 1976. San Juan's health began to fail after a stroke in the 1970s, but she lived to enjoy her family for decades to come. At age 81, Olga San Juan died in 2009, of kidney failure stemming from a long-term illness at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, in Burbank, California. She was buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California. She was honoured with the Screen Actors Guild Latino Legacy Award for her work. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "for most her career, Puerto Rican singer/dancer Olga San Juan was a welcome distraction by American audiences. A flavorful, scene-stealing personality who delightfully mangled the English language, she decorated a number of war-era and post-war musicals and comedy escapism with her special brand of comedy."
Sources: Tamara Warta (Love to know), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
French postcard by Europe, no. 720. Photo: Paramount. Fay Wray in Pointed Heels (A. Edward Sutherland, 1929).
Canadian-born American actress Fay Wray (1907-2004) attained international recognition as the first 'scream queen' in a series of horror films during the early 1930s. Through an acting career that spanned nearly six decades, Wray is best known as Ann Darrow, the girl held in the hand of King Kong (1933). Two days after her death, the lights of the Empire State Building, the location of King Kong's climax scene, were dimmed for 15 minutes in memory of the "beauty who charmed the beast".
Vina Fay Wray was born in 1907 on a ranch near Cardston in the province of Alberta, Canada. Her American parents, Elvina Marguerite Jones and Joseph Heber Wray, were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was one of six children. Her family returned to the United States a few years after she was born, in order for her father to find better work than what was offered in Alberta. They moved to Salt Lake City in 1912, and later they relocated to Los Angeles, where Fay attended Hollywood High School. Her parents divorced, which put the rest of the family in hard times. Being in entertainment-rich Los Angeles, there was ample opportunity to take advantage of the chances that might come her way in the entertainment industry. At the age of 16, Wray made her film debut, when she landed a role in a short historical film, Gasoline Love (1923), sponsored by a local newspaper. The film was not a hit, nor was it a launching vehicle for her career. It would be two more years before she ever got another chance. Wray landed a major role in the silent film The Coast Patrol (Bud Barsky, 1925), as well as uncredited bit parts at the Hal Roach Studios. In 1926, the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers selected Wray, along with Janet Gaynor and Mary Astor, as one of the 'WAMPAS Baby Stars', a group of thirteen starlets whom they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. She was at the time under contract to Universal Studios, mostly co-starring in low-budget Westerns opposite Buck Jones. The following year, Wray was signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures. In 1926, director Erich von Stroheim cast her as the main female lead in his film The Wedding March (Erich von Stroheim, 1928), released by Paramount two years later. Over the six months of filming, Stroheim shot over 200,000 feet of film. The film's original budget was estimated at $300,000 ($4,333,000 today). By the time film producer Pat Powers shut down production, the budget had risen to $1,250,000 ($18,398,000 today). While the film was noted for its production values, it was a financial failure. After her first lead role, Wray stayed with Paramount to make more than a dozen films, including Thunderbolt (Josef von Sternberg, 1929) with George Bancroft, and made the transition from silent films to 'talkies'.
After leaving Paramount, Fay Wray signed to various film companies. Under these deals, Wray was cast in various horror films, including Doctor X (Michael Curtiz, 1932), The Vampire Bat (Frank R. Strayer, 1933) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz, 1933), all starring Lionel Atwill. In addition, she appeared in many other types of roles, including in The Bowery (Raoul Walsh, 1933) and Viva Villa (Jack Conway, 1934), both of which starred Wallace Beery. However, her best-known films were produced under her deal with RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. Her first film under RKO was The Most Dangerous Game (Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1932), co-starring Joel McCrea. It was followed by Wray's most memorable film, King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933) with Bruce Cabot. The Most Dangerous Game was shot at night on the same jungle sets that were being used for King Kong during the day, with Wray and Robert Armstrong starring in both films. When first-choice Jean Harlow proved to unavailable, Wray was approached by director Merian C. Cooper to play the role of Ann Darrow, the blonde captive of King Kong. Cooper told her that he had a part for her in a picture in which she would be working with a tall, dark leading man. What he didn't tell her was that her "tall, dark leading man" was a giant gorilla. Wray was paid $10,000 ($200,000 in 2020 dollars) to play the role. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Perhaps no one in the history of pictures could scream more dramatically than Fay, and she really put on a show in "Kong". Her character provided a combination of sex appeal, vulnerability and lung capacity as she was stalked by the giant beast all the way to the top of the Empire State Building." The film was a commercial success and Wray was reportedly proud that the film saved RKO from bankruptcy. Ann Darrow became the role with which Wray was most associated. In 1933, Fay Wray also became a naturalised citizen of the United States. She continued to star in various films, including the romantic comedy The Richest Girl in the World (William A. Seiter, 1934), a second film with Joel McCrea, but by the early 1940s, her appearances became less frequent. She retired from acting in 1942 after her second marriage but due to financial exigencies soon resumed her acting career.
Over the next three decades, Fray Wray appeared in several films and frequently on television. Wray was cast in the sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953-1954) as Catherine Morrison. Paul Hartman played her husband, Albie Morrison. Natalie Wood and Robert Hyatt played their children, Ann and Junior Morrison, respectively. Wray appeared with fellow WAMPAS Baby Star Joan Crawford in the Film Noir drama Queen Bee (Ranald MacDougall, 1955). Wray appeared in three episodes of Perry Mason: The Case Of The Prodigal Parent (1958); The Case of the Watery Witness (1959), as murder victim Lorna Thomas; and The Case of the Fatal Fetish (1965), as voodoo practitioner Mignon Germaine. Other roles around this time were in the episodes Dip in the Pool (1958) and The Morning After of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In 1960, she appeared as Clara in an episode of 77 Sunset Strip, Who Killed Cock Robin? She ended her acting career in the made-for-television film Gideon's Trumpet (Robert Collins, 1980), starring Henry Fonda. In 1988, she published her autobiography 'On the Other Hand'. In her later years, Wray continued to make public appearances. In 1991, she was crowned Queen of the Beaux-Arts Ball presiding with King Herbert Huncke. She was approached by James Cameron to play the part of Rose Dawson Calvert for his blockbuster Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) with Kate Winslet to play her younger self, but she turned down the role, which was played by Gloria Stuart. In 1998, King Kong wound up being named one of the 100 greatest films of all time by the American Film Institute. On the 70th Annual Academy Awards (1998), Billy Crystal introduced a clip of her in King Kong (1933) and then came offstage and stood next to Miss Wray in the audience, and introduced her as the "Beauty who charmed the Beast, the Legendary Fay Wray". In 2003, the 95-year-old Wray appeared at the 2003 Palm Beach International Film Festival to celebrate the documentary film Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (Rick McKay, 2003), which she also appeared in. She was honored with a 'Legend in Film' award. In 2004, Wray was approached by director Peter Jackson to appear in a small cameo for his remake of King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005). Jackson wanted Fay to say the closing line of the film. She met with Naomi Watts, who was to play the role of Ann Darrow, but she politely declined the cameo and claimed the original "Kong" to be the true "King". Before the filming of the remake commenced, Wray died in her sleep of natural causes on 8 August 2004, in her apartment in Manhattan, five weeks before her 97th birthday. Wray is interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California. Fay Wray married three times. Her husbands were the authors John Monk Saunders (1928-1939; divorce) and Robert Riskin (1942-1955; his death), and the neurosurgeon Sanford Rothenberg (1971-1991; his death). She had three children: Susan Saunders, Victoria Riskin, and Robert Riskin Jr. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "She was an excellent actress who never was given a chance to live up to her potential, especially after being cast in a number of horror films in the '30s. Given the right role, Fay could have had her star up alongside the great actresses of the day. No matter. She remains a bright star from cinema's golden era."
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
A bit of a challenge to work with a previously built white metal & brass kit and bring a rather tired old model back to life.
The kit was not badly assembled but had suffered the ravages of split joints, cracked parts, badly dented panels and an unfortunate attempt to tidy up the rear end detail.
The resulting Hedingham 25th Anniversary liveried Paramount is worth the effort put in to the refurb.
The only diecast among these coaches is number 83 (PJI 5958), an EFE Plaxton Paramount. It was taken over by Arden Forest from PHM Travel when the latter ceased trading and unusually is a Dennis Javelin - I don't think the combination of the high-floor Paramount 3500 body with the Javelin chassis ever actually existed in reality.
British Airways also had this Paramount Volvo B10M at Manchester on crew duties, numbered CC6016. It was new in 1991 to Gatwick airport but three years later had moved north.
145 N. County Rd
Palm Beach, FL 33480
1927-1980
Architect: Joseph Urban
Screens: Single
Seating capacity: 1,236
Current usage: Church
I was fortunate enough to be able to take a photo from the stage of The Paramount Theatre. It was just a few minutes before the doors were opening for a movie premier and I only had time to setup the tripod and take one set of brackets. Pretty happy with the results.
Seen in Richmond in March 1992 is Eastbourne Buses Volvo B10M-61 / Plaxton Paramount 3500 II C53F 3 C580KNO. This coach was new to Essex Police of Chelmsford in 1986 and, along with 2 others from the Eastbourne fleet, was visiting Kew Gardens on the day I photographed it.
A691 ERB
Bedford YNT/Plaxton Paramount 3200 C53F
Durham (Howletts Coaches/Acclaim Travel), Winslow
Buckingham, 12 May 2004
New to Felix, Stanley
Bedford coaches were the mainstay of operators in the rural Aylesbury Vale but all of them have gone now. The last survivor was A691 ERB of Howletts, purchased from Felix in 1991. It spent a period out of use in the early 2000s but is seen here on its return to service with a new engine and a smart set of wheeltrims. Sadly it didn't quite make 20 years here before being sold for export to Zimbabwe.
Osaka VW45FC, 120mm f/6.3, New Guy collodion, Vinegar/Copper sulfate developer, Modern Collodion black aluminum
f/11, 2 seconds
overexposed.
The only building standing after the Woolsey fire destroyed the rest of the movie town.
Driving along a quite road in Kaneohe, I spotted this view through the trees. Quickly, I pulled the car over, ran along the roadway for a little bit, and grabbed this shot. You never know when inspiration will strike.
Taken from "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days" (2003).
(c) 2003 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6209/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Paramount.
American screen legend Gary Cooper (1901-1961) is well remembered for his stoic, understated acting style in more than one hundred Westerns, comedies and dramas. He received five Oscar nominations and won twice for his roles as Alvin York in Sergeant York (1941) and as Will Kane in High Noon (1952).
Frank James Cooper was born in Helena, Montana in 1901. His parents were English immigrants, Alice Cooper-Brazier and Charles Henry Cooper, a prominent lawyer, rancher, and eventually a state supreme court judge. Frank left school in 1918 and returned to the family ranch to help raise their five hundred head of cattle and work full-time as a cowboy. In 1919, his father arranged for his son to complete his high school education at Gallatin County High School in Bozeman, Montana. His English teacher, Ida W. Davis, played an important role in encouraging him to focus on academics, join the school's debating team, and become involved in dramatics. He was in a car accident as a teenager that caused him to walk with a limp the rest of his life. In the fall of 1924, Cooper's parents moved to Los Angeles to administer the estates of two relatives. Cooper joined them and there he met some cowboys from Montana who were working as film extras and stuntmen in low-budget Western films. Cooper decided to try his hand working as a film extra for five dollars a day, and as a stuntman for twice that amount. In early 1925, Cooper began his film career working as an extra and stuntman on Poverty Row in such silent Westerns as Riders of the Purple Sage (Lynn Reynolds, 1925) with Tom Mix, and The Trail Rider (W.S. Van Dyke, 1925) with Buck Jones. Cooper paid for a screen test and hired casting director Nan Collins to work as his agent. Collins changed his first name to ‘Gary’ after her hometown of Gary, Indiana. Cooper also worked in non-Western films. He appeared as a masked Cossack in The Eagle (Clarence Brown, 1925) with Rudolph Valentino, as a Roman guard in Ben-Hur (Fred Niblo, 1925) with Ramón Novarro, and as a flood survivor in The Johnstown Flood (Irving Cummings, 1926) with George O'Brien. Gradually he began to land credited roles that offered him more screen time, such as Tricks (Bruce M. Mitchell, 1925), in which he played the film's antagonist. As a featured player, he began to attract the attention of major film studios and in June 1926, Cooper signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn Productions. His first important film role was in The Winning of Barbara Worth (Henry King, 1926) with Ronald Colman and Vilma Bánky. The film was a major success, and critics called Cooper a "dynamic new personality" and future star. Cooper signed a five-year contract with Jesse L. Lasky at Paramount Pictures for $175 per week. In 1927, with help from established silent film star Clara Bow, Cooper landed high-profile roles opposite her in Children of Divorce (Frank Lloyd, 1927) and Wings (William A. Wellman, 1927), the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. With each new film, Cooper's acting skills improved and his popularity continued to grow, especially among female movie-goers. He received a thousand fan letters per week. The studio placed him opposite popular leading ladies in films such as Beau Sabreur (John Waters, 1928) with Evelyn Brent, Half a Bride (Gregory La Cava, 1928) with Esther Ralston, and Lilac Time (George Fitzmaurice, 1928) with Colleen Moore. The latter introduced synchronized music and sound effects, and became one of the biggest box office hits of the year.
In 1929, Gary Cooper became a major film star with his first sound picture, The Virginian, (Victor Fleming, 1929). The Virginian was one of the first sound films to define the Western code of honour and helped establish many of the conventions of the Western genre. The romantic image of the tall, handsome, and shy cowboy hero that embodied male freedom, courage, and honour was created in large part by Cooper's performance in the film. Cooper transitioned naturally to the sound medium, with his deep, clear, and pleasantly drawling voice. One of the high points of Cooper's early career was his portrayal of a sullen legionnaire in Josef von Sternberg's Morocco (1930) with Marlene Dietrich in her American debut. Cooper produced one of his finest performances to that point in his career. In the Dashiell Hammett crime drama City Streets (Rouben Mamoulian, 1931) he played a misplaced cowboy in a big city who gets involved with gangsters to save the woman (Sylvia Sidney) he loves. After making ten films in two years Cooper was exhausted and had lost thirty pounds. In May 1931, he sailed to Algiers and then Italy, where he lived for the next year. During his time abroad, Cooper stayed with the Countess Dorothy di Frasso who taught him about good food and vintage wines, how to read Italian and French menus in the finest restaurants, and how to socialize among Europe's nobility and upper classes. In 1932, a healthy Cooper returned to Hollywood and negotiated a new contract with Paramount for two films per year, a salary of $4,000 per week, and director and script approval. He appeared opposite Helen Hayes in A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932), the first film adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel. Critics praised his highly intense and at times emotional performance, and the film went on to become one of the year's most commercially successful films. The following year, Cooper appeared in the Ernst Lubitsch comedy Design for Living (1933) with Miriam Hopkins and Fredric March, and based loosely on the successful Noël Coward play. Wikipedia: “The film received mixed reviews and did not do well at the box office, but Cooper's performance was singled out for its versatility and revealed his genuine ability to do light comedy”. Then, he appeared in his first of seven films by director Henry Hathaway, Now and Forever (1934), with Carole Lombard and Shirley Temple. The film was a box-office success. His next two Henry Hathaway films were the melodrama Peter Ibbetson (1935) with Ann Harding, about a man caught up in a dream world created by his love for a childhood sweetheart, and the romantic adventure The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), about a daring British officer and his men who defend their stronghold at Bengal against rebellious local tribes. The latter was nominated for six Academy Awards and became one of Cooper's most popular and successful adventure films.
Gary Cooper returned to Poverty Row for the first time since his early silent film days to make Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936) with Jean Arthur for Columbia Pictures. Cooper plays the character of Longfellow Deeds, an innocent, sweet-natured writer of greeting cards who inherits a fortune, leaves behind his idyllic life in Vermont, and travels to New York where he faces a world of corruption and deceit. For his performance in Mr. Deeds, Cooper received his first Oscar nomination. In the adventure film The General Died at Dawn (Lewis Milestone, 1936) with Madeleine Carroll, he plays an American soldier of fortune in China who helps the peasants defend themselves against the oppression of a cruel warlord. Written by playwright Clifford Odets, the film was a critical and commercial success. In Cecil B. DeMille's sprawling frontier epic The Plainsman (1936) with Jean Arthur—his first of four films with the director—Cooper portrays Wild Bill Hickok in a highly-fictionalized version of the opening of the American western frontier. That year, Cooper appeared for the first time on the Motion Picture Herald exhibitor's poll of top ten film personalities, where he would remain for the next twenty-two years. In Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938) with Claudette Colbert, Cooper plays a wealthy American businessman in France who falls in love with an impoverished aristocrat's daughter and persuades her to become his eighth wife. In the adventure film Beau Geste (William A. Wellman, 1939) with Ray Milland, he joined the French Foreign Legion to find adventure in the Sahara fighting local tribes. Wikipedia: “Beau Geste provided Cooper with magnificent sets, exotic settings, high-spirited action, and a role tailored to his personality and screen persona.” Cooper cemented his cowboy credentials in The Westerner (William Wyler, 1940). He won his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 1942 for his performance as Alvin York, the most decorated U.S. soldier from the Great War, in Sergeant York (Howard Hawks, 1941). Cooper worked with Ingrid Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls (Sam Wood, 1943) which earned him his third Oscar nomination. The film was based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway, with whom Cooper developed a strong friendship. On 23 October 1947, he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, not under subpoena but responding to an invitation to give testimony on the alleged infiltration of Hollywood by communists. Although he never said he regretted having been a friendly witness, as an independent producer, he hired blacklisted actors and technicians. He did say he had never wanted to see anyone lose the right to work, regardless of what he had done. Cooper won his second Oscar for his performance as Marshal Will Kane in High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952), one of his finest roles and a kind of come-back after a series of flops. He continued to play the lead in films almost to the end of his life. His later box office hits included the influential Western Vera Cruz (Robert Aldrich, 1954) in which he guns down villain Burt Lancaster in a showdown, William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion (1956), in which he portrays a Quaker farmer during the American Civil War, Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon (1957) with Audrey Hepburn, and the hard-edged action Western Man of the West (Anthony Mann, 1958), with Lee J. Cobb. Cooper's final film was the British-American co-production The Naked Edge (Michael Anderson, 1961). In April 1960, Cooper underwent surgery for prostate cancer after it had metastasized to his colon. But by the end of the year the cancer had spread to his lungs and bones. On 13 May 1961, six days after his sixtieth birthday, Gary Cooper died. The young and handsome Cooper had affairs with Clara Bow, Lupe Velez, Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah Bankhead. In 1933, he married socialite Veronica Balfe, who, billed as Sandra Shaw, enjoyed a short-lived acting career. They had an ‘open’ marriage and Cooper also had relationships with the actresses Grace Kelly, Anita Ekberg, and Patricia Neal. Sir Cecil Beaton also claimed to have had an affair with him.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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Here's an evening shot of the beautiful Paramount Theater marquee on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Virginia. Operating as a movie theater from 1931 to 1974, it has provided a variety of concerts and other live art performances since reopening in 2004. Films are also still shown, including the Christmas classic advertised on the marquee.
Information from the theater's website.
American postcard by Kline Poster Co. Inc., Phila. Photo: Pallas / Paramount.
American silent screen actress Myrtle Stedman (1885-1938) was known as 'the girl with the pearly eyes'. In 1911, Myrtle and her husband Marshall Stedman were signed by the Selig Polyscope Co. Myrtle was a leading lady in silent films of the 1910s and early 1920s for such companies as Bosworth and Pallas and later, she became a character actress.
Myrtle Stedman was born Myrtle Lincoln in Chicago, Illinois, in 1885, and was educated at a private finishing school there. Her musical talents developed quite early. At age 12, she already sang in the chorus of light operas and musical comedies. Her voice was cultivated in France. Her tutor was Marchesi, who was known as one of the finest instructors of voice culture in his country. In 1900, she married Marshall Stedman, a drama school conductor. She starred for a number of seasons in Isle of Spice and The Chocolate Soldier. She performed for a year at the Whitney Theater in Chicago and was a prima donna of the Chicago Grand Opera Company. She decided to abandon her music career altogether for the cinema. In 1911, Myrtle and Marshall Stedman were signed by the Selig Polyscope Co. Her first film was the short Western The Range Riders (Francis Boggs, Otis Turner, 1910), starring Tom Mix. Myrtle's first longer film was the melodrama The Two Orphans (Otis Turner, Francis Boggs, 1911), a three-reeler starring Kathlyn Williams. Myrtle was often directed or paired up with Marshall during those early years, but Myrtle was the one who stood out with filmgoers. 'The girl with the pearly eyes' was not only an adorably enchanting and enigmatic presence in a film drama, but her athletic abilities also complemented Westerns and action adventures. She moved to the Bosworth Company in 1914 and appeared in such noteworthy silents as The Valley of the Moon (Hobart Bosworth, 1914) starring Jack Conway, The Country Mouse (Hobart Bosworth, 1914), Jane (Frank Lloyd, 1915) with Charlotte Greenwood, Peer Gynt (Oscar Apfel, Raoul Walsh, 1915) starring Cyril Maude, and, most notably, the classic Hypocrites (1915), directed by pioneer filmmaker Lois Weber.
Myrtle Stedman increased her reputation as a fine actress with The American Beauty (William Desmond Taylor, 1916) for Pallas Pictures, As Men Love (E. Mason Hopper, 1917) with House Peters, In the Hollow of Her Hand (Charles Maigne, 1918) starring Alice Brady, and The Teeth of the Tiger (Chester Withey, 1919). Her son, Lincoln Stedman, made his debut as a juvenile player about this time. Following her rich roles in Reckless Youth (Ralph Ince, 1922), Flaming Youth (John Francis Dillon, 1923) starring Colleen Moore, and The Famous Mrs. Fair (Fred Niblo, 1923), which was considered one of her finest roles, her star began to fade. Her marriage also fell apart and in 1919 the pair divorced. As she regressed into support work, she was able to maintain, however, while others of her acting level fell completely by the waste side. In 1936, she was signed by Warner Brothers to play bit and extra roles. Myrtle suffered a heart attack in late 1937 and declined quickly. Her last release was Accidents Will Happen (William Clemens, 1938) with Ronald Reagan. Myrtle Stedman died in Hollywood in 1938 at age 52. She was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California. Her ex-husband died in 1943 and her son Lincoln passed away in 1948.
Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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Premiere Programme exhibited at the Riverside Museum, Glasgow
"Opened on December 31st 1934, the Glasgow Paramount Theatre was one of the later cinemas built for the American based chain in Britain. The architects were Frank T. Verity and Samuel Beverly, who designed many of the Paramount Theatre’s in the UK.
Glasgow’s was freestanding, and occupied half a city block. The facade was built in white granite, with five two-storey finned windows curving around and above the corner entrance. At night, the entire building was outlined in neon.
The main foyer had an open staircase and upper foyer, which looked down onto the ground floor, and was home to a tea room and restaurant, situated under the tall corner windows. A further cafe was situated upstairs from the main restaurant.
The auditorium seated 2,784 in the circle and stalls, and was originally coloured green, copper and silver. The stage area was spacious, with a tall fly-tower, and around fifteen dressing rooms at the rear of the side elevation and under the stage. A Compton 4Manual/10Ranks organ rose from this under-stage area.
In 1939, the Paramount Theatre, along with all other UK Paramount’s, was sold to Oscar Deutsch’s chain of Odeon Theatres Ltd. and was re-named Odeon. Under this name, it continued successfully until 1970, with live shows augmenting the film presentations. The Rolling Stones played there, as did The Beatles supported on the bill by Roy Orbison. Duke Ellington and his Orchestra appeared in concert in the late-summer of 1969. The Odeon was closed on 13th September 1969 to be remodeled into a triple screen cinema.
The Compton organ was removed and by January 2004, the console was being housed in Summerlee Heritage Museum in nearby Coatbridge. It has now been shipped to a private residence in the USA. The remodeling involved stripping almost all of the Italianate interior out and creating 3 screens – one in the former balcony, one in the stalls (both seating around 1,100) and a smaller screen in the former stage area. This latter screen, seating 555, was formed over two levels, with a small circle, and had a separate entrance to the rear of the building. The foyers were remodeled too, with the double height sections being floored over, and the staircase realigned. The cafes were walled off to become offices and staff areas, and a bar was placed in the top foyer, although the view from the corner windows was now blocked.
The exterior suffered then too, the corner windows and fins being hidden behind a giant, full height readograph, lit from behind, and with corrugated metal sheeting covering much of the granite around it. It reopened as the Odeon Film Centre on 2nd October 1970.
In 1988, the screen in the stalls area was further subdivided into three screens, of around 220 seats each, and the smaller Screen 3 was split horizontally to give a total of six screens. Access to all screens was now from the main entrance. A further subdivision in 1999 saw the 1,100 seat Screen 1, in roughly the former circle, divided into four screens, bringing the total to nine. The current Screen 1, at 555 seats, is now the largest in the complex. This refurbishment also saw the bar being removed and, happily, the exterior restored to something like its former glory, with the removal of the readograph and the corrugated sheeting.
Sadly, only a few years later, the future seems uncertain, as Odeon sold the building in March 2003 to developers. On 29th March 1995, Historic Scotland afforded the building a degree of protection with a Grade B Listed building status, but this seems only to apply to the facade. It is listed in the Buildings At Risk Register.
The cinema closed on 7th January 2006, and plans call for the demolition of the interior to be replaced with shops, restaurants, and a nightclub. The facade is supposed to be restored to its 1934 appearance. The auditorium was demolished in March 2013 and will be replaced by a hotel & office block, with the front of the former Odeon and its foyer spaces becoming the lobby of the hotel." Cinema Treasures Website
Since the above narrative was written the office block has been completed.
German cigarette card by Ross Verlag in the 'Künstler im Film' series for Zigarettenfabrik Monopol, Dresden, Serie 1, image 141 (of 200). Photo: Paramount.
Grace Bradley (1913-2010) was a petite, seductive and sassy American actress who played 'good-time' girls in many second feature thrillers and musicals of the 1930s and 1940s. She was the fifth and last wife of William 'Hoppalong Cassidy' Boyd.
Grace Bradley was born in Brooklyn in 1913 and was an only child. As a child, she took piano lessons and, by the age of six, she gave her first recital. She attended the Eastman School of Music near Rochester, New York by age 12, after winning a scholarship. Initially, she studied to be a concert pianist. At age 15, she played Carnegie Hall, representing the state of New York in one of its annual competitions for up-and-coming pianists. The accomplished pianist also took advantage of her budding loveliness by modeling full time and taking singing and dancing lessons. She played the piano, sang and danced, on stage and in nightclubs, from an early age to help support her widowed mother. A Broadway producer discovered her during one of her dance recitals and hired her for a professional show. In 1930, she made her Broadway debut at New York's Hammerstein Theatre in 'Ballyhoo of 1930', starring WC Fields. Her next stage appearance came one year later at The Music Box Theatre in 'The Third Little Show'. Soon Bradley found herself working in various New York nightclubs and theatres. In March 1933, she appeared opposite Jimmy Durante in 'Strike Me Pink' at the Majestic Theatre. She left the show after deciding to give Hollywood a try. Although Bradley made one film in 1932, her film career did not gather steam until she starred in the film musical Too Much Harmony (A. Edward Sutherland, 1933) starring Bing Crosby, which provided her first film credit. In it, she sang and danced to the feisty tune 'Cradle Me With a Hotcha Lullaby. She was under contract to Paramount Pictures beginning in 1933, and reportedly took home $150 per week. She continued in small roles in A-features such as the W.C. Fields classic Six of a Kind (Leo McCarey, 1934), She Made Her Bed (Ralph Murphy, 1934), and the Richard Arlen picture Come On Marines (Henry Hathaway, 1934), in which, leather-clad as JoJo La Verne, she dances in front of giant mirrors.
From 1933 to 1943, Grace Bradley appeared in dozens of quickly made second features, often cast as 'good-time girls,' as distinct from good girls, sometimes with invented ooh-la-la French names such as Goldie, Trixie, Flossie, Lily, and Sadie. She had the female lead opposite Bruce Cabot in Redhead (Edward L. Cahn, 1934), appeared in the Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray comedy The Gilded Lily (Wesley Ruggles, 1935), and had a secondary part in the Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman version of Anything Goes (Lewis Milestone, 1936). Her musical talents were tapped into with the films The Cat's-Paw (Sam Taylor, 1934) starring Harold Lloyd, Stolen Harmony (Alfred L. Werker, 1935), Old Man Rhythm (Edward Ludwig, 1935), and Wake Up and Live (Sidney Lanfield, 1937). The musical Sitting On the Moon (Ralph Staub, 1936) gave her the chance to sing the title number in a nightclub, in both straight and swing versions. Bradley's film career came to a climax with three of the producer Hal Roach's 'streamliners' (comedy films which lasted less than an hour): Brooklyn Orchid (Kurt Neumann, 1942), Two Mugs from Brooklyn (Kurt Neumann, 1942) and Taxi, Mister (Kurt Neumann, 1943). She starred in all three as the hoity-toity wife of a lummox cab driver played by the unlovely but likable William Bendix.
In 1937, Grace Bradley agreed to a blind date and met Hopalong Cassidy star, William Boyd, 18 years her senior. She had harbored a long-time school-girl crush on the man and she was instantly smitten upon their first meeting. The two of them hit it off so well that they married three weeks later in June 1937. Grace would become the fifth (and last) Mrs. William Boyd, in a marriage that would last 35 years. The union was happy but childless. In the 1940s, Bradley's star began to wane and, in 1943, she starred in her last big role in the comedy Taxi, Mister (Kurt Neumann, 1943). Following this, Bradley had officially played out her Paramount contract and she spent the remainder of the 1940s alongside her husband William Boyd and travelled around the country with her "Prince Charming on a big white horse" helping to promote his cowboy image. She did come out of her publicity trips with Boyd to make one more film appearance, an uncredited cameo role in the CinemaScope short Tournament of Roses (Otto Lang, 1954). In 1972, Boyd died. Following his death, Bradley retired from the entertainment world, but she continued to help keep Boyd's memory alive. Ronald Bergan at The Guardian: "Wisely, the Boyds secured the rights to the films, which gained a new life on television from the late 1940s. There were also comic strips, books, and toys. After Boyd's death, aged 77, in 1972, she began a protracted legal battle against infringements of the rights of the films, and eventually acquired one of the largest settlements in copyright history. In 2008, she co-wrote an understandably hagiographic book, 'Hopalong Cassidy – An American Legend'." With her acting career behind her, she devoted her time to volunteer work at the Laguna Beach Hospital where her husband had spent his final days. Grace Bradley Boyd died on her 97th birthday in Dana Point, California in 2010. Two days later, private services were held at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, where she was interred with her husband in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Sacred Promise.
Sources: Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Seen heading around the St.Annes Street roundabout in Valetta catching the early morning sun on May 26th this year was LPY111 one of Paramount Coaches two Plaxton Elite bodied Volvo B12B's.
These two vehicles have sen very little use despite being on the island for a number of months, this is, however not unusual for Paramount.
British postcard by New-Line, no. 193. Photo: Paramount. Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Rick Rossovich and Anthony Edwards in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).
American actor and producer Tom Cruise (1962) became with his charismatic smile the most successful member of Hollywood's Brat Pack, the golden boys and girls of the 1980s. Top Gun (1986) made him an action star, but with his roles in The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) he proved himself to be an all-round star and excellent actor. During the 1990s, he continued to combine action blockbusters like Mission Impossibe (1996) with highly acclaimed dramas like A Few Good Men (1992), Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and Magnolia (1999). He received more praise for his roles in Minority Report (2000) and Collateral (2002) and was for years one of the highest paid actors in the world. Although he continued to score major box office hits with the Mission Impossible franchise, his later work was overshadowed by his outspoken attitude about Scientology which alienated him from many of his viewers.
Tom Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in 1962 in Syracuse, NY. He is the only son of Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. He has three sisters: Marian, Lee Anne De Vette, and Cass. In 1974, when Cruise was 12, his parents divorced. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, with his mother and her new husband. Deeply religious, he enrolled in a Franciscan seminary with the ambition to join the priesthood. He dropped out after one year. In high school, he was a wrestler until he was sidelined by a knee injury. Soon taking up acting, he found that the activity served a dual purpose: performing satiated his need for attention, while the memorisation aspect of acting helped him come to grips with his dyslexia. Moving to New York in 1980, he studied drama at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse, in conjunction with the Actors Studio, New School University, New York. He signed with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and began acting in films. His film debut was a small part in Endless Love (Franco Zeffirelli, 1981), starring Brooke Shields. It was followed by a major supporting role as a crazed military academy student in Taps (Harold Becker, 1981), starring George C. Scott and Timothy Hutton. In 1983, Cruise was part of the ensemble cast of The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983). The Hollywood press corps began touting Cruise as one of the 'Brat Pack', a group of twenty-something actors who seemed on the verge of taking over the movie industry in the early 1980s. Cruise's first big hit was the coming-of-age comedy Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983), in which he entered film-trivia infamy with the scene wherein he celebrates his parents' absence by dancing around the living room in his underwear. From the outset, he exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences. Cruise played the male lead in the dark fantasy Legend (Ridley Scott, 1985) and the action film Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986) with Kelly McGillis and Val Kilmer. Top Gun (1986) established Cruise as an action star. However, he refused to be pigeonholed and followed it up with a solid characterisation of a fledgling pool shark in The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986), for which co-star Paul Newman earned an Academy Award. In 1988, he played the brother of an autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman in the drama Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988). However, Cruise had not yet totally convinced critics he was more than a pretty face while he also starred in Cocktail (Roger Donaldson, 1988), which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor. His chance came when he played paraplegic Vietnam vet Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989). For his role, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 1990 Tom Cruise renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church Of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. He was introduced to Scientology by his ex-wife Mimi Rogers. Though Cruise's bankability faltered a bit with the expensive disappointment Far and Away (Ron Howard, 1990) with his then-wife Nicole Kidman, A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992) brought him back into the game. By 1994, the star was undercutting his own leading man image with the role of the slick, dastardly vampire Lestat in the long-delayed film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994), opposite Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas. Although the author was vehemently opposed to Cruise's casting, Rice famously reversed her decision upon seeing the actor's performance, and publicly praised Cruise's portrayal. In 1996, Cruise scored financial success with the reboot of Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996), but it was with his multilayered performance in Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe, 1996), that Cruise proved once again why he is considered a major Hollywood player. For Jerry Maguire, he won another Golden Globe and received his second Oscar nomination. According to IMDb, Cruise is the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed $100 million in the United States: A Few Good Men (1992), the thriller The Firm (Sydney Pollack, 1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996). 1999 saw Cruise reunited onscreen with Kidman in a project of a very different sort, Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1990). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The film, which was the director's last, had been the subject of controversy, rumour, and speculation since it began filming. It opened to curious critics and audiences alike across the nation and was met with a violently mixed response. However, it allowed Cruise to once again take part in film history, further solidifying his position as one of Hollywood's most well-placed movers and shakers. Cruise's enviable position was again solidified later in 1999 when he earned a third Golden Globe and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a loathsome 'sexual prowess' guru in Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)."
In 2000, Tom Cruise scored again when he returned as an international agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible II (John Woo, 2000), which proved to be one of the summer blockbusters. Like its predecessor, it was the highest-grossing film of the year and had a mixed critical reception. He then reteamed with Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe for a remake of the Spanish film Abre los Ojos/Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997) titled Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001) with Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz. Though Vanilla Sky's sometimes surreal trappings found the film receiving a mixed reception at the box office, the same could not be said for the following year's massively successful Sci-Fi chase film Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2001), or of the historical epic The Last Samurai (Edward Zwick, 2003). For his next film, Cruise picked a role unlike any he'd ever played; starring as a sociopathic hitman in the psychological thriller Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004). He received major praise for his departure from the good-guy characters he'd built his career on, and for doing so convincingly. He teamed up with Spielberg again for the second time in three years with an epic adaptation of the H.G. Wells alien invasion story War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005). The summer blockbuster was in some ways overshadowed, however, by a cloud of negative publicity. It began, when Cruise became suddenly vocal about his beliefs in Scientology, the religion created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise publicly denounced actress Brooke Shields for taking medication to combat her postpartum depression, going so far as to call the psychological science a "Nazi science" in an Entertainment Weekly interview. In 2005, he was interviewed by Matt Lauer for The Today Show during which time he appeared to be distractingly argumentative in his insistence that psychiatry is a "pseudoscience," and in a Der Spiegel interview, he was quoted as saying that Scientology has the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. This behaviour caused a stirring of public opinion about Cruise, as did his relationship with 27-year-old actress Katie Holmes. The two announced their engagement in the spring of 2005, and Cruise's enthousiasm for his new romantic interest created more curiosity about his mental stability. He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where he jumped up and down on the couch, professing his love for the newly-Scientologist Holmes. The actor's new public image alienated many of his viewers. As he geared up for the spring release of Mission: Impossible III (J.J. Abrams, 2006), his ability to sell a film based almost purely on his own likability was in question for the first time in 20 years. Despite this, the film was more positively received by critics than the previous films in the series and grossed nearly $400 million at the box office. Cruise moved on to making headlines on the business front when he and corporate partner Paula Wagner in 2006 officially " took over" the United Artists studio, which was all but completely defunct. One of the first films to be produced by the new United Artists was the tense political thriller Lions for Lambs (Robert Redford, 2007), with Redford, Cruise, and Meryl Streep. The film took an earnest and unflinching look at the politics behind the Iraq war but was a commercial disappointment. This was followed by the World War II thriller Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008) with Kenneth Branagh and Carice van Houten.
Tom Cruise would find a solid footing as the 2010s progressed, with blockbusters like Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird, 2011) and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie, 2015). He is known for doing many of his own stunts in these films, even exceptionally dangerous ones. The Mission Impossible franchise earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Cruise reteamed with Cameron Diaz in the action-comedy Knight and Day (James Mangold, 2010). He starred as Jack Reacher in the film adaptation of British author Lee Child's 2005 novel One Shot (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012). He also starred in big-budget fantasy projects like Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013) and Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014). Tom Cruised was married three times. His first wife was actress Mimi Rogers, with whom he was married from 1987 till their divorce in 1990. His second marriage with Nicole Kidman from 1990 till 2001. They adopted two children Isabella Jane Cruise (1992) and Connor Antony Cruise (1995). he lived together with Vanilla Sky (2001) co-star Penélope Cruz from 2001 - 2004. His 2006 marriage to Katie Holmes ended in divorce in 2012. They have one daughter, Surie Cruise (2006). Recently, Cruise returned on the screen as Ethan Hunt in the sixth installment of the Mission Impossible series, Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018). In 2020, he will also return as Pete " Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, 2020), in which Val Kilmer will also reprise his role from the first film.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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