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Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 2705. Photo: Paramount. Claudette Colbert in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934).
With her round apple face, big eyes and charm, French-born Hollywood star Claudette Colbert (1903-1996) was the epitome of chic sophistication. Her comedies It Happened One Night (1934) - for which she won the Oscar, Midnight (1939) and The Palm Beach Story (1942) are among Hollywood's greatest ever. After more than 60 films, she returned with great success to the theatre and was 84 years old when she won a Golden Globe for the TV mini-series The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987).
Claudette Colbert was born Emilie ‘Lily’ Claudette Chauchoin in 1903 in Saint-Mandé, an eastern suburb of Paris, where her father owned a bakery. Her parents were Georges Claude Chauchoin and Jeanne Marie née Loew. In 1906 her family emigrated to New York. Though she did some acting in college, her primary interest was fashion design. She studied fashion when she met the writer Anne Morrison at a party who offered the 20-year-old student a small role in her play The Wild Westcotts (1923) on Broadway. She started to use the stage name, Claudette Colbert. After signing a five-year contract with the producer Al Woods, Colbert played ingénue roles on Broadway from 1925 through 1929. British actor Leslie Howard, with whom she had a brief relationship in 1924, encouraged her and persuaded his friend the producer Al Woods to put her under contract but, despite personally good notices, she did not get into a major hit until The Barker (1927) with Walter Huston and Norman Foster. In The Barker, she played a duplicitous snake charmer. She and Foster, later a Hollywood actor and director, were married the following year during the play's London run. Their marriage remained a secret for many years while they lived in separate homes. In Los Angeles, Colbert shared a home with her mother Jeanne Chauchoin, but her domineering mother disliked Foster and did not allow him into their home. Colbert and Foster divorced in 1935 in Mexico. Colbert's first film, For the Love of Mike (Frank Capra, 1927), was made during The Barker's Broadway run. The silent film is now believed to be lost. She was concerned that silent cinema failed to utilise her melodious voice, one of her greatest assets. The advent of talkies changed her attitude, and in 1929 she signed a Paramount contract. Only two of her first 15 films - The Big Pond (Hobart Henley, 1930) and The Smiling Lieutenant (Ernst Lubitsch, 1931), both co-starring Maurice Chevalier - were better than mediocre. Then Cecil B. De Mille asked her to play Nero (Charles Laughton)'s unscrupulous wife Poppaea in the Biblical epic The Sign of the Cross (1932). Her performance was acclaimed, while her bath in asses' milk received immense publicity and has become a famous scene in Hollywood history. Columbia offered her the role of a spoiled heiress in It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934). Colbert was initially reluctant to appear in the screwball comedy and demanded to be paid $50,000 - twice her usual pay - and that filming was to be completed within four weeks to allow her to take a planned vacation. Tom Valance at The Independent: “The role gave her the chance to work with Clark Gable, who had been forced by his studio, MGM, to do the film. Neither star initially expected much of the low-budget comedy which won five Oscars. Colbert was in fact boarding a train for New York on the night of the ceremony when she was stopped and rushed back to accept her Best Actress award from Shirley Temple.” The madcap comedy was a mega-hit all across the country. Two more big hits consolidated her status. She played the title role in the lavish but inaccurate Cleopatra (Cecil B. De Mille, 1934), then starred in Imitation of Life (John Stahl, 1934), a trenchant study of racial intolerance. It was based on Fannie Hurst's novel about a young widow who becomes a millionairess marketing the pancake recipe of her black friend (Louise Beavers). While the widow and her daughter move into society, the friend insists on keeping in the background, and when her light-skinned daughter, who faces exclusion and prejudice where her counterpart has privilege and opportunity, tries to pass for white and disowns her mother tragedy follows.
In 1935, Claudette Colbert was named one of the top 10 money-making stars, a position she was to hold again in 1936 and 1947. Fred MacMurray had his first major role in her next film, The Gilded Lily (Wesley Ruggles, 1935), and the two would go on to co-star in six more films. Charles Boyer, co-star of Colbert's next film, Private Worlds (Gregory La Cava, 1935), and not yet fully conversant with the English language, would also acknowledge the support he received from the actress, who won a second Oscar nomination for her performance as a psychiatrist in this grim story of mental illness. Wikipedia: “Colbert was a stickler for perfection regarding the way she appeared on screen. She believed that her face was difficult to light and photograph, and was obsessed with not showing the right side of her face to the camera, because of a small bump resulting from a childhood broken nose. She often refused to be filmed from the right side of her face, and this sometimes necessitated redesigning movie sets.” Colbert's first marriage ended in 1935 while she was making She Married Her Boss (Gregory La Cava, 1935). The same year she married Joel Pressman, a throat specialist and surgeon at UCLA, who remained her husband until he died in 1968. Colbert's role in Under Two Flags (Frank Lloyd, 1936), based on Ouida's tale of the Foreign Legion, was an unusual one for her, that of the tempestuous camp-follower "Cigarette" who sacrifices herself for the love of a soldier (Ronald Colman). For the same director, she starred in Maid of Salem (Frank Lloyd, 1937), an account of the 1692 witch-hunts in Massachusetts. Colbert never seemed entirely comfortable in period pieces, and both audiences and critics were happy when she returned to modern comedy with I Met Him In Paris (Wesley Ruggles, 1937) and Tovarich (Anatole Litvak, 1937), in which she and Charles Boyer were impoverished Russian nobility working as maid and butler in a Parisian household. Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (Ernst Lubitsch, 1938), with a screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, based on a 1923 Gloria Swanson silent film, was a disappointment. After a promising start in which Colbert meets Gary Cooper in a Riviera store where she is trying to buy pyjama bottoms while he is trying to purchase just the tops, it becomes contrived and frantic rather than funny. Zaza (George Cukor, 1939), in which Colbert sang several songs as a French music-hall star, was another failure. Then followed one of her greatest films, the Cinderella-inspired screwball comedy Midnight (1939), directed by Mitchell Leisen and brilliantly written by Brackett and Wilder. Colbert next appeared with Henry Fonda in the Western Drums Along the Mohawk (John Ford, 1939), her first film in colour, as a farmer's wife coping with rugged conditions and hostile Indians. Boom Town (Jack Conway, 1940) was one of her most popular films, due to its star-power of Gable, Colbert, Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr.
Claudette Colbert cited as her favourite film Arise My Love (Mitchell Leisen, 1940), set just after the Spanish Civil War. Tom Valance in The Independent: “It has some splendidly romantic, dramatic and comic moments as Colbert, playing a reporter, pretends to be the wife of a condemned soldier of fortune (Ray Milland) to save him from a Spanish firing squad, then inevitably falls in love with him. Brackett and Wilder's screenplay tried to keep pace with changing events in Europe (the story ends after the invasion of France) which resulted in some uneasy shifts of mood in an otherwise impressive work.” Better still was Henry King's warmly charming piece of Americana Remember The Day (Henry King, 1941), in which Colbert gave a glowing performance as a school teacher who while visiting a now-famous former pupil recalls the past and her sweetheart who was killed in the First World War. Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story (1942) is one of the screen's greatest screwball comedies and contains the sequence Colbert later cited as her favourite comic scene. Having left her husband to find a millionaire to finance his inventions, she is climbing into a train's upper berth when she steps on the face and glasses of a rich passenger (Rudy Vallee). During the Second World War Colbert's husband, Joel Pressman, became a Navy lieutenant and she spent much time selling war bonds and working for the war effort. Two of her major films were effective wartime propaganda: So Proudly We Hail (Mark Sandrich, 1943), a tribute to the nurses in Bataan and Since You Went Away (John Cromwell, 1944), producer David O. Selznick's ambitious three-hour tribute to the families at home. Colbert considered hard before taking the role of the mother to two teenage girls, but it became one of her finest, most deeply felt performances, representing the women left to raise families while their husbands are at war. In one remarkably touching scene Colbert, who has taken a job at a munitions factory, converses with a refugee, now a naturalised American (Alla Nazimova). For the part, she received her third Academy Award nomination but lost to Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight. She appeared in such mild comedies as Practically Yours (Mitchell Leisen, 1944), and tepid dramas as Tomorrow is Forever (Irving Pichel, 1946) with Orson Welles. Colbert and Fred MacMurray had an enormous box-office hit with The Egg and I (Chester Erskine, 1947) as a city couple trying to run a farm, but the slapstick (lots of falling about in the mud) was far from the sophistication Colbert purveyed so expertly. Three Came Home (Jean Negulesco, 1950) gave her a strong dramatic role as Agnes Newton Keith, a true-life American author captured when the Japanese invaded Borneo in 1941. Her scenes with Sessue Hayakawa (as the cultured prison camp commander) were memorable in a gripping film which was too grim to be a major hit. Colbert had appeared on radio regularly throughout her career, and in 1951 she made her television debut on The Jack Benny Show. Other appearances included The Royal Family of Broadway (1954), The Guardsman (1955) and Blithe Spirit (1956), with Noel Coward and Lauren Bacall. In 1951 she also returned to the stage, with a tour of Noel Coward's Island Fling (later known as South Sea Bubble). She went to Britain to star with Jack Hawkins in The Planter's Wife (Ken Annakin, 1952) based on the native terrorism being faced by rubber planters. The film was a hit in Britain. The following year Colbert went to France to play a mistress of Louis XIV in Sacha Guitry's lavish Si Versailles m'etait conte/Royal Affairs in Versailles (1953). She returned to Broadway in 1955, replacing Margaret Sullavan in Janus, then in 1958 starred in a new play, Leslie Stevens's The Marriage-Go-Round. The play was a hit and Colbert won a Tony nomination. Her last film was Parrish (Delmer Daves, 1961), a soap opera in which Colbert played the mother of Troy Donahue. She continued to make Broadway appearances, among them The Irregular Verb To Love (1963), The Kingfisher (1978) and A Talent For Murder (1981), and she returned to the London stage in Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All? (1984) opposite Rex Harrison. For her television work in the mini-series The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (John Erman, 1987) she received a Golden Globe and a nomination for an Emmy Award. Claudette Colbert spent much of her time at the 200-year-old plantation house she and her husband had bought long ago in Barbados, and she also had a flat in Paris and an apartment on the East Side of New York. After three strokes, she died in Barbados in 1996 at the age of 92.
Tom Vallance in The Independent: “It is no accident, surely, that she flourished at that most European of studios, Paramount, home of Lubitsch and Chevalier, Mamoulian, Von Sternberg and Wilder. Her distinctive high-cheekboned beauty and the throaty individuality of her voice were complemented by superb comic timing and fine technical skill honed by an extensive apprenticeship in the theatre. She could be warmly compassionate in romantic drama but was unsurpassable in sophisticated comedy.”
Sources: Tom Vallance (The Independent), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Hi,
The Youth ecology centre attacks attention to the glaciers` melting in
Tajikistan. I`m melting is a slogan of our action.
Location: Varzob valley, Tajikistan
Photo by Vitaly Sattarov
"Seeing within changes one's outer vision."
- Joseph Chilton Pearce
a reflection of myself sitting in my room.
an old self-photo.
'the winds of change are always blowing
and every time i try to stay
the winds of change continue blowing
and they just carry me away.'
~ willie nelson
Art, capitalism and social change
In Oaxaca, Mexico, street art has been an important component of the struggle for social justice. On the other hand we’ve seen art sponsorship used as part of the PR strategy of multinationals like BP. What is the role of art in social change, and how should activists relate to the mainstream art world? What are the possibilities for anti-capitalist art?
Peter Kennard Photomontage artist and art academic
Mel Evans Author of Artwash: big oil and the arts
Rosario Martínez Llaguno and Roberto Vega Jiménez Lapiztola Stencil, Mexico
FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. -- Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Gundrum takes responsibility for the Pennsylvania National Guard's entire enlisted force during a change of responsibility ceremony held at the installation July 15, 2012. Gundrum takes over the Pennsylvania National Guard's top enlisted position from Command Sgt. Maj. Nicholas Gilliland who has served in the position since late 2009. Gilliland will be deploying overseas to Afghanistan with the Pennsylvania National Guard's Company B, 2nd Battalion, 104th Aviation Regiment. Prior to this new assignment, Gundrum served as Command Sgt. Maj. of the Pennsylvania National Guard's 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team. (Pennsylvania National Guard photo by Capt. Robert Sperling/Released)
Coast Guard Eighth District Chief of Staff Capt. John Reed presides of a change-of-command ceremony for Coast Guard Air Station Houston, Texas, June 11, 2021. Cmdr. Matson relieved Capt. Canady as the commanding officer. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Paige Hause)
Long Island Children's Museum Changes & Challenges exhibit. Walk inside the bus shelter to find out how people with various disabilities ride the bus everyday.
5 or so years ago it was possible to build a pair of sub-1450 gram road
wheels but it meant giving up something in long term durability or
stiffness. The Kinlin XR-270 rim changed all this – it was the first 450
gram rim which could be built in a lowish spoke count and still have great
stiffness and durability. The XR-270 was a great rim in it’s day and it
changed the handbuilt wheel industry.
Times move on and the Pacenti SL23 is now here. This rim takes all the
good attributes of the XR-270 and improves on them. The Pacenti’s wider
width allows lower tyre pressure for more grip and better comfort, and it’s
super high quality brake track is smooth and pulse-free.
Jim’s wheelset demonstrates that a wheelset can be super durable (we offer
a lifetime guarantee against broken spokes) while being stiff, responsive,
and very light.
For Jim’s wheels we used our favourite pairing of an Alchemy ELF front hub
and a White Industries T11 rear hub. This combination drops weight in the
front hub while beefing up the rear hub and ensuring that the wheels are
super stiff.
Bladed DT Swiss Aerolite spokes and aluminium nipples hold everything
together.
There aren't many wheelsets out there with a weight of less than 1450 grams
(actual weight, not manufacture-claimed) and I can’t think of another one
where the manufacturer promises you’ll never break a spoke.
Enjoy your wheels Jim :-)
Canon EOS 5D. This is what happens when bracket fungi are growing on a dead tree and the tree falls over. They keep growing, just with a different orientation. (That black mass at ten o'clock must be a slug. Didn't notice it until I was back at the computer). This is a toothed fungi, identification unknown. Help appreciated.
Axios reporter Amy Harder moderates a keynote conversation with Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), who chairs the newly created House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
Climate change has reemerged as a top priority on Capitol Hill — and the conversation has matured from whether to take action to how.
Learn more at www.wri.org/events/2019/04/reenergizing-climate-action-ca...
Tobyhanna Army Depot
June 17, 2019
Reviewing Officer: Maj. Gen. Randy S. Taylor, U.S. Army CECOM Commanding General
Outgoing Commander: Col. Nathan M. Swartz
Incoming Commander: Col. John W. McDonald
Photographer: Thomas Robbins
Sunday December 20th 2020
Out for the day to see some trains and some amazing art roll by. All of the "Fisheye" 7.5mm shots the time is off by one hour, as I forgot to change the clock on the Fujifilm X-E-3 when we "Fell" back.
Arrived about 10:15AM, pulled up to the trailhead parking lot, into the first space next to the handicaped parking space and immediately noticed that there was a cargo type van, pulled off of the blacktop, and there were a couple guys with cameras filming into the back of the van. Hmmm... When I got out of the car I noticed that there was a guy in the back of the van, tied up, and had tape accross his mouth. I figured they were filming some sort of project and asked if I should move my car as I was only one space away from where they were filming. No, you're fine. Ok, and a hiking I would go. Out to my favorite benching spot. My favorite place to go to graffiti, and have graffiti delivered to me via the rails and locally.
It doesn't take long to get to my spot, but the spot is magical. Weird rocks, desert, not to hard to get to, and trains all day...
I go out there by myself, but see tons of people rolling through on their quads, jeeps, and $20k side by sides with flags and music blaring out into the desert. Always some crappy music. Nothing that makes me feel like I'm out in the desert alone. The Jim Morrison vibes when you're out there alone are real. It can be scary, friendly, hot or cold. The desert can be inviting one minute, but when you're running low on water harsh in the next. I've been to the beach maybe a handfull of times in my life, but have been to the desert hundreds, and it's my comfort spot.
Saw a ton of amazing pieces today and captured most of them. Had fun, and didn't get bitten by anything. All in all, it was a great way to spend the day.
Turns out the people filming the guy tied up in the van were filming part of a music video. Had a nice 5 min. conversation with them and home I went to look at the treasures I'd captured.
Stay safe out there !!!!
To see my graffiti photo/video slideshows on YouTube: www.youtube.com/SilenceSeven
PMX 667 was one of a batch of twenty low floor Irizar i3 bodied Mercedes Benz buses which were received by OSEA for use on services in the region of Paralimni, Agia Napa and the surrounding areas. Here it is seen at Paralimni Bus Station on February 23rd 2024 prior to working a journey on route 101 to Agia Napa Marina.
Tobyhanna Army Depot
June 17, 2019
Reviewing Officer: Maj. Gen. Randy S. Taylor, U.S. Army CECOM Commanding General
Outgoing Commander: Col. Nathan M. Swartz
Incoming Commander: Col. John W. McDonald
Photographer: Thomas Robbins
Cobra Wrestling Association - Carnage - Cyclon & Kevin Williams Vs Deimos & Nick Adams
Cyclon (c) & Kevin Williams (c) (Skeleton Crew) def. (Pin) Deimos & Nick Adams (Enygma)
For : CWA tag team (No Title Change)
( De eerste show voor 2018 is bekend, CWA Carnage zal doorgaan op 3 februari in Zedelgem! )
Damon Lamar Reed, 2005, exterior, Neighborhood Housing Services, North Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, USA, mosaic
Climate Corporate Governance for Financial Institutions - Building resilience to climate change risk
During the past decade, with extreme weather causing hundreds of USD billions of
losses per year and the changing climate intensifying the adverse effects of wasteful
practices, environmental considerations have overtaken economic concerns as the
main sources of global risk, according to the World Economic Forum.
Financial regulators and the European Union are responding with recommendations
and guidance on the disclosure of climate-related financial risks to help integrate
sustainability into investor portfolio management. Credit rating agencies are
developing new ways to anticipate how climate-related risks could impact businesses
and financial institutions.
But is this enough?
To assess whether the financial sector is adequately equipped, the EBRD is brought
together representatives from financial institutions to share their practical experience
of the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of climate-related risk management.
The event discuseed ways to achieve an effective investor-led climate response
via climate corporate governance, standards-based climate finance, climate risk
management, climate-related capital market products.
abundant, amber, warm, apple, hay, blustery, breezy, bright, brilliant, brisk, brown, changing, chestnut,chilly, cobweb, cold, colder, colours, comfortable,cooling, corn, cozy, crackling, crisp, crops, crunchy, earthy, enchanting, enjoyable, falling leaves, feast, fireside, fog, gray, gusty, frosty, fruit, gold, golden, seeds, harvest moon, hibernating, inspirational,
leaf-strewn, magnificent, nuts.
"Do you want your change?"
The cashier inquired. As if I had money to spare.
A nickel, some pennies, a dime, perhaps.
She figured that I didn't care.
I thought of those people in less developed countries,
Who had barely enough food to survive.
Would they refuse some coins because they were inconvenient to carry,
When they needed every cent to stay alive?
"Did you want your change?" the cashier repeated.
She assumed my attention had waned.
"It's only a few cents. You could put it in the tip jar."
I blurted out: "Do you think I'm insane!?"
"I know for a fact, you're well-paid for your service.
You hardly have dependence on tips.
Meanwhile refugees are fleeing poor 3rd world countries
In over-crowded, un-seaworthy ships."
She pointed to another jar, labeled: "Help Feed the World's Poor".
I thought: Yeah, that I believe.
She must think me naive.
I'll fall for that one, for sure.
I called her bluff and held out my hand.
She must have thought my reaction quite strange.
I said, "I have a solution: my own charitable institution.
Just give me my f--ing change."
B. Kite -- 2/19/2023
Change Islands is an outport community in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The community spans two small islands of the same name which lie off the northeast coast of the island of Newfoundland between Notre Dame Bay and the Labrador Sea. The community of Change Islands is located primarily on the larger South Island, today hosting approximately 200 residents, though most of the public buildings are on the North Island.