‘Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!’ – Lord Henry Wooton, The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde I WANT TO TALK about Andrew McCarthy’s eyes. And what became of them. He never quite had classic Hollywood lead looks: his face was sensitive boy-next-doorish; a… Read More »The Early Supper Club – Andrew McCarthy’s doc Brats
How the Austrian Cinders became a Hollywood Prince Two decades ago, during peak metrosexmania in the US, the bodybuilder movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, never exactly shy about drawing attention to himself – and now running for office – briefly came out as metrosexual. Or at least, welcomed the tag being applied to… Read More »Arnold Schmahzenegger
The steamy private life of the seismically successful Cinemascope stud How tall was Rock Hudson? The answer seems to be ‘it depends’. Wikipedia and others give his height as 6’4”, which seems to be his ‘official’, ‘studio’ height. But some sources give his height as 6’51/2”, and in the 1959 screwball,… Read More »Rock (of Gibraltar on the) Hudson
I’ve been devouring – a little late – High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess, Charles Fleming’s page-turning and hair-raising 1998 biography of the late Hollywood producer and ‘bad boy’, who along with his ‘good boy’ partner Jerry Bruckheimer were the most successful independent producers in Hollywood… Read More »How Don & Tom Made ‘Top Gun’ So Steamy
How Sam’s body in ‘Psycho’ melted mine and Marion’s minds On New Year’s Day I rewatched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. As you do. Released in 1960, his low-budget, shockingly deviant, uber-Freudian masterpiece is sixty years old this year. Pensionable, almost. In a worrying development, suggesting I may be due early retirement… Read More »Psycho Somatic