Viva Glam Baby

retrochic:

Excerpt from By Myself and Then Some by Lauren Bacall

missdorothykilgallen:

carmelb:

crabcakes:

Well, we movie stars got the glory, I guess we have to take the little heartaches that go with it. People think we lead lives of glamour and romance, but we’re really lonely. Terribly lonely.

fuckyeahavagardner:

“He was like someone I would’ve like to have had for a brother, and his teasing manner made me feel at ease. He was also a ferocious drinker…But when we worked together, I went up on lines more often than he did. In one scene, when I was suppose to say, ‘In a pig’s eye you are,’ what came out was, ‘In a pig’s ass you are.’ Old habits die awfully hard.” - Ava on Richard Burton

oldhollywood:

The last day of March,

My darling Sleeping Child, I am oddly shy about you. I still regard you as an inviolate presence. You are as secret as the mysterious processes of the womb. I’m not being fancy…I have treated women, generally, very badly and used them as an exercise for my contempt - except in your case.

I have fought like a fool to treat you in the same way and failed. One of these days I will wake up - which I think I have done already - and realise to myself that I really do love. I find it very difficult to allow my whole life to rest on the existence of another creature. I find it equally difficult, because of my innate arrogance, to believe in the idea of love. There is no such thing, I say to myself.

There is lust, of course, and usage, and jealousy, and desire and spent powers, but no such thing as the idiocy of love. Who invented that concept? I have racked my shabby brains and can find no answer.

But when people die, those who are taken away from us can never come back. Never, never, never, never, never (Lear about Cordelia). We are such doomed fools. Unfortunately, we know it. So I have decided that, for a second or two, the precious potential of you in the next room is the only thing in the world worth living for. After your death there shall only be one other and that will be mine. Or I possibly think, vice versa.

Ravaged love,

And loving Rich

-Richard Burton in a letter to Elizabeth Taylor (1973) (via)

fuckyeahlaurenbacall:

“When they made the three of us they sure broke the molds and threw them away. They don’t come like us anymore.” - Lauren on herself, Vivien Leigh, and Kay Kendall.

retrochic:

Schatze Page: I think this is it, kids. A great big room full of nothing but rich millionaires. And us.

oldhollywood:

“I know I’m vulgar, but would you have me any other way?”

-Elizabeth Taylor

retrochic:

“I’m happy that I have brought laughter because I have been shown by many the value of it in so many lives, in so many ways.” - Lucille Ball

goodolddays:

oldhollywood:

“I have bursts of being a lady, but it doesn’t last long.”

-Shelley Winters (1949, photo by Allan Grant)

fuckyeahavagardner:

“Mother and Ava Gardner were a dynamite pair. Of all her friends, I think they were the closest in temperment and outlook on life. They shared many of the same tastes and even fell for many of the same men, yet they never let it affect their friendship. Both loved all things Latin. Bullfights thrilled them. They could rumba, samba, or dance the flamenco from sundown to sunrise. Even their final years were similar. Both were world-class beauties who ended up no longer wanting romantic attachments, were somewhat reclusive, and hooked on the telephone. They were telephone friends until Ava passed away in 1990.” - Cheryl Crane, Lana Turner’s daughter.

retrochic:

“I can`t play a loser - I don`t look like one.” - Rock Hudson

retrochic:

“I believe in living each day as it comes, to the best of my ability. When it`s done, I put it away, remembering that there will be a tomorrow to take it`s place. If I have any philosophy, that`s it. To me it`s not a fatalistic attitude.” - Ginger Rogers

oldhollywood:

Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier as Antony and Cleopatra (1951) (via guardian.co.uk/corbis)

“We were like brother and sister, just as she always wanted. But fortunately, occasional incest was allowed.”

-Olivier on his former wife, Vivien Leigh

retrochic:

“I had been offered a Hollywood contract before my 18th birthday. It gave me the spark I needed.” - Gene Tierney