No way! Cary Grant ate toast!

November 9, 2007 12:22 AM

Ken Murray's Hollywood Without Makeup (1950) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Safe for work. All of the starlets back then wore underwear. Sorry, guys.

posted by miss lynnster (20 comments total)

George Raft (2) looks like he coulda been a member of Tony Soprano's crew.
posted by cogneuro at 1:23 AM on November 9, 2007

Wait a minute... I'm up to chapter five and noone's in rehab yet?? Really? In a series where the photographer proudly anounces that "I've taken a lot of pictures of Dick through the years" and then goes on to crow about Hollywood openings.... And yet the most shocking images of all, of course, are those barren shots of Hollywood Boulevard at the dawn of car culture. Wow.
posted by maryh at 1:30 AM on November 9, 2007

Really great post. Thanks, miss lynnster.
posted by wsg at 1:34 AM on November 9, 2007

Wasn't Raft a UDT? Or was it Aldo Ray?
posted by pax digita at 2:42 AM on November 9, 2007

Wow, this sort of stuff existed before People Magazine? So I guess my theory of American society devolving with each generation is wrong; we've been shallow from the start. Now I want to see some Betsy Ross upskirts.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 3:48 AM on November 9, 2007

“All of the starlets back then wore underwear. Sorry, guys.”

The late twenties and thereabouts were wild in ways we've yet to duplicate. I'm sure quite a few starlets during that time didn't wear underwear.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:49 AM on November 9, 2007

Wikipedia has some good Mae West quotes:

“A hard man is good to find.”

“Sex is like bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.”

“My left leg is Christmas and my right leg is New Year's. Why don't you visit me between the holidays?”
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:54 AM on November 9, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

This post just might make me late for work. Thanks!
posted by wafaa at 4:04 AM on November 9, 2007

Sorry, guys.

Flagged.

;)
posted by sidereal at 5:57 AM on November 9, 2007

My favorite of Mae West's: "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."
posted by pax digita at 7:04 AM on November 9, 2007

I would just like to say that I love Cary Grant with every fiber of my being. That is all.
posted by vronsky at 8:29 AM on November 9, 2007

Wasn't Raft a UDT? Or was it Aldo Ray?

There's an interesting unofficial list of Hollywood veterans in the forum thread Actors who fought in WW2 at Wild Bill Guanere.com. See also Actors with WWII Military Records.

The book Stars in Blue — Movie Actors in America's Sea Services* confirms that hair-shirted tough guy Aldo Ray^WP was a UDT recon frogman at Okinawa.

Silk-shirted tough guy George Raft^WP was 46 when WWII started and didn't serve in the armed forces.

*The same authors have also written International Stars at War — Movie Actors in Service to Their Countries.
posted by cenoxo at 8:50 AM on November 9, 2007

Stars Without Underwear: Tallulah Bankhead (don't miss Hitchcock's quip at the end), Carmen Miranda (for freedom's sake), and Marilyn Monroe (for fashion's sake).

Others, well, almost^NreallySFW.

This thread is pointless without the IMG tag.
posted by cenoxo at 9:14 AM on November 9, 2007

Yes, true true. I should've phrased that differently. How about: "all of the startlets in this particular production kept their genetalia under wraps."
posted by miss lynnster at 9:26 AM on November 9, 2007

Thx for confirming the UDT thing. I thought I'd read somewhere that Ray was a frog, and I guess I conflated him with Raft.

Speaking of Stars In Blue, Jason Robards, Jr. played Army Gen. Walter Short in Tora! Tora! Tora!, a 1970 dramatization of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Robards, then a Navy radioman on USS Honolulu, was actually aboard at 0800 local time 7 Dec 1941. The Wikipedia link about Robards includes his reminiscences.
posted by pax digita at 9:33 AM on November 9, 2007

Wikipedia has some good Mae West quotes:

Which, not surprisingly, are false.
posted by QuietDesperation at 10:11 AM on November 9, 2007

... "all of the startlets in this particular production kept their genetalia under wraps."

You mean "startlet genetalia wraps"* like Dorothy Lamour's, then?

*Somehow it sounds more fitting your way, but I think you're digging yourself deeper, ML. ;-)
posted by cenoxo at 12:57 PM on November 9, 2007

“Which, not surprisingly, are false.”

Really? Citation, please.

Tallulah Bankhead is who I was trying to remember when I posted that first comment. She was as wild as they come, having sex at the drop of a hat with men she didn't know, and being quite open and frank about it in her public persona.

She was awesome.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:19 PM on November 9, 2007

Plus she kicked butt on Batman. Somehow I never would've pegged her as being from Alabama, though.

And she was pretty funny on Lucy, too.
posted by miss lynnster at 2:33 PM on November 9, 2007

... and as pure as the driven slush. Bankhead held no illusions about her Hollywood image either. From Hollywood Portraits: Classic Shots and How to Take Them:

They used to photograph Shirley Temple though gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.

Fortunately, the illusionists didn't take her advice.
posted by cenoxo at 2:38 PM on November 9, 2007