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Joan Blondell
Joan Blondell (Above) born Rose Joan Blondell on August 30, 1906, in New York City. Died December 25,1979 from leukemia in Santa Monica.
Brief Bio of Joan Blondell
Her father was a vaudeville comic, and Joan was onstage at the age of 3. She was a member of a professional stock company at 17, and co-starred with James Cagney in the Broadway production of Penny Arcade in 1929. The play was filmed as Sinner's Holiday in 1930 by Warner Brothers, with both Cagney and Blondell in their stage roles. Blondell went on to star with Cagney in ten more films, and though Cagney continued on to the first tier of Hollywood stardom, Blondell worked opposite many leading men but did not carry films on her own and was considered a 'leading support' player to boost a male lead.
Blondell went independent in 1939, and had an Academy Award nomination for The Blue Veil in 1951. She made occasional films (like the Hepburn/Tracy Desk Set in 1957) and had numerous roles on television (she also did dozens of radio programs).
She once said about Hollywood "There`s a very fine line between under acting and not acting at all. And not acting is what a lot of actors are guilty of. It amazes me how some of these little numbers with dreamy looks and a dead pan are getting away with it. I`d hate to see them on stage with a dog show."
Blondell published a novel under her own name in 1972 from Delacorte Press, titled "Center Door Fancy." The book tells the (apparently quite autobiographical) story of a woman brought up to work as an actress, though she has subconscious goals of building a family and home instead.
"Blondell was no enigma to depression era audiences. She was honest, cynical, determined. She can take charge. In Blondie Johnson (1933) she plays not the gun moll of Chester Morris, lounging in a bed jacket while he pulls off a job, but the leader of the gang, the mastermind. (Both are apprehended, but they'll serve time, repent, and be united.) In Footlight Parade (1933), as a showman Cagney's secretary, she virtually runs the film, getting Cagney to hire Ruby Keeler out of the typing pool and onto the stage (whereupon Keller really does say, "Gee, Mr. Kent, that'd be swell."), forcing Cagney's crooked employers to pay him earnings they had been withholding, and protecting Cagney from gold digger Claire Dodd, incidentally getting off the film's zinger in telling Dodd, "As long as they have sidewalks, you've got a job!" At the film's end, when Cagney has pulled off a spectacular comeback, she cries, "You did it!" and he replies, "You mean we did it!" he's right."
From the book Movie Star, chapter 10 ("Fighters") by Ethan Mordden, St. Martins Press 1983. Available from amazon.com
"Blondell was never naive. When Warners tried to begin her buildup by changing her name, she balked. Always thinking of her family, she told the studio that her name was an established show business entity. (Blondell said Warners wanted to change her to "hold everything – Inez Holmes.") Knowing they were dealing with a professional who had been around, Warners gave her some latitude."
"Blondell's statements about her roles and her attitude... "I just sailed through things, took the scripts I was given, did what I was told. I couldn't afford to go on suspension. I was what they called a studio dame... I just showed off my big boobs and tiny waist and acted glib and flirty. I was the fizz on the soda."
From the book The Star Machine, by Jeanine Basinger, Alfred A Knopf publishers, 2007. Available from amazon.com
"Laughing and cracking wise, singing and dancing, rattling off dialogue a mile-a-minute, and batting those long-lashed baby blues, she was surely the most loveable leading lady ever seen on the Warner lot; and she was a survivor; returning to the studio in '72 to star in a TV series, "Banyon," she found that of the famous WB "stock company" that made movie history on the premises – Bogart, Cagney, Flynn, Davis et al. – she was the only one there..."
From the book Movie Stars of the '30s, by David Ragan, Prentice-Hall publishers, 1985.
amazon.com: Joan Blondell Bio
A Life Between Takes
By Matthew Kennedy
300 pages: University of Mississippi Press
[Below: photo of Joan Blondell in 1969, by John Loengard for Life Magazine.]
Photo Source: Google Life Library
Joan Blondell and Bette Davis
Original page Dec 27, 2009. Updated May 2011.
New Jean Harlow book
I've not seen a copy of the book yet, but simply put, the Vieira Hollywood picture-books are the best albums on Hollywood, bar none, for well over a decade now. No one puts as much attention to the production aspects, design, picture choices, and then ladles the whole affair with affection and admiration in the text. Classic Hollywood has not had a modern explainer and admirer like Vieira for decades now, and the taste and skill brought to bear on his books make them both readable-fun and collectible (some of his past books are out of print and instead of dropping down to the remainder pricing so many used Hollywood books seem to end up at, his instead get harder to find and buy).
Book is by Darrell Rooney and Mark Vieira, 240 pages, Angel City Press. Available from amazon.com
New Book: Broken Silence: Conversations with 23 Silent Film Stars
This is a collection of 23 original interviews with stars of the silent screen, with biographical information and a filmography included for each.
Interviewed are Lew Ayres, William Bakewell, Lina Basquette, Madge Bellamy, Eleanor Boardman, Ethlyne Clair, Junior Coghlan, Joyce Compton, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Dorothy Gulliver, Maxine Elliott Hicks, Dorothy Janis, George Lewis, Marion Mack, Patsy Ruth Miller, Lois Moran, Baby Marie Osborne, Muriel Ostriche, Eddie Quillan, Esther Ralston, Dorothy Revier, David Rollins and Gladys Walton.
About the Author Michael G. Ankerich is a writer whose work focuses on the silent film era of Hollywood. A former newspaper reporter, he has written extensively for Classic Images, Films of the Golden Age, and Hollywood Studio Magazine, which featured his interview with Butterfly McQueen (Prissy) on the 50th anniversary of the release of Gone With The Wind.
Book is 319 pages, McFarland. Available from amazon.com
New Busby Berkeley book
Maybe the most revered of musical directors was the extreme-stylist of the golden era of Hollywood movies, Busby Berkeley, a man who changed what a stage-production meant on film by taking the camera and making it move like a winged-eye that could see the motion of actors from every angle. Whether they were underwater, behind glass, or below a skyward lense, Berkeley made synchronized motion more than a filmed reproduction of a Broadway play.
Book is by Jeffrey Spivak, 408 pages, University Press of Kentucky. Available from amazon.com