HotfromOldHollywood

“Fabian was sitting on a doorstep when Bob Marcucci happened by & told him he could be a singing star. ‘You’re crazy,’ was Fabian’s reaction. ‘I can’t sing.’” Two singing teachers “washed their hands of him, but Bob kept working on his voice.” Movie Stars TV Close-Ups 1/59.

“With a Ziegfeld girl for a mom no wonder David Janssen won a ‘prettiest baby’ contest; now he’s winning scores of fans.” Richard Diamond, which debuted in 1957, was a hit, but The Fugitive cemented his TV stardom. Image and quote: TV Star Annual 17, 1964.

Screen Album (11/54-1/55): “James Dean swore he wouldn’t become a ‘Hollywood character.’ If [that] means buying a Palomino, running around in beat-up leather jacket & jeans, driving a souped-up MG, insulting Hedda Hopper & playing the bongos, Jimmy is sticking to his vows.”

A rare fan mag photo of Richard Pryor, from “The New Hip-Hippie Hollywood”: “Richard Pryor is an up-and-coming young actor who believes in his own manner of thought and expression and his own manner of dress too” (Movie Mirror Yearbook 1969).

“The New Hip-Hippie Hollywood” (Movie Mirror Yrbk 1969) highlighted the Beatles’ & Mia Farrow’s involvement w the Maharishi & the Smothers Brothers’ commentary “on the ills of our times,” while peacenik Vanessa Redgrave “participates in freedom marches in London.”

With more than 650 film & TV credits to his name, James Hong got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today at 93 years old

Good night, Twitter pals. Stay glamorous.

4-year-old Liza Minnelli with Phil Silvers on set of SUMMER STOCK (1950)

Gina Lollobrigida, “the Italian Marilyn Monroe,” sticks her tongue out for the camera in Movieland’s 1955 Annual.

“The marriage of Ida Lupino and Howard Duff is hanging by a thread and the break will probably come soon. But they’ll continue to work together just as Ida did after divorce from ex, Collier Young.” (Quote and image from Movie Screen Yearbook 1, 1954.)

Montgomery Clift in his Manhattan apartment, 1949. Photographed by Stanley Kubrick for Look Magazine.

George Maharis, Teen Pin-Ups 5/62. A letter to the editor in that issue: “That’s pretty funny, [reporting that Maharis] used to stay in Greenwich Village. I can’t believe he was a beatnik. George Maharis never was a beatnik. And I know only beatniks live in Greenwich Village.”

“It's that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so 'don't fuss, dear; get on with it.'” ~ Audrey Hepburn

Tony and Oscar winner Shirley Booth w her poodles, Prego & Grazia. “Shirley as a young girl defied her father to go on stage. She says she has never been happier — certainly never wealthier — than as the incomparable Hazel.” Quote & image: TV Star Annual 17, 1964.

Here’s another great fan mag pic of the late Bobby Rydell, this one from the cover of Teen Magazine, August 1960.

In honor of International Jazz Day, here’s to 1955’s Pete Kelly’s Blues, starring Jack Webb, Peggy Lee (Oscar nominated for her role as a jazz singer) & Janet Leigh, w cameo by Ella Fitzgerald & small parts for Lee Marvin, Marty Milner & Jayne Mansfield. Screen Stories 9/55.

An unlikely pairing: Angie Dickinson and Ronald Reagan, appearing together in the 1964 Don Siegel film, The Killers. The film was Reagan’s last before he entered (non-Hollywood) politics, and his only role as a villain. (From Hollywood Screen Parade, February 1965.)

Another fan mag pic of Sal Mineo, from the same issue that reported his on-set injury. Caption: “Sal cools off with a popsicle during one of those happy family get-togethers.” Movie Mirror Yearbook No. 3, 1961.