BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD – Podcast

Episodes

Episode 32. It’s said in Hollywood that you should always forgive your enemies — because you never know when you’ll have to work with them.
27 Dec 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
All through life, instinctively or intellectually, we adapt to survive. Even insects have some boss strategies, for example, the formation of a chitinous exoskeleton, which is the somewhat see-through shell that encapsulates and protects a shrimp or a spider. I have a theory about directors who succeed in the movie…
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Episode 31. I always say that if a woman will tell you her age, she will tell you anything.
26 Dec 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
Life is a series of metamorphoses. Some of them get more airtime than others. I remember once waiting in a gynecologist’s office to see the doctor. There was his desk, on the walls family pictures, on the shelves, some weighty texts. I was curious about hot flashes, so I pulled…
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Episode 30. Every star I know in Hollywood acknowledges the same fact. With luck you can climb. Without it, your brakes don’t work even when you coast.
19 Dec 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
For a few short days after Antoine’s crisis I was more aware of the rhythms and mechanisms of filmmaking and its twitchy straitlaced cousin finance than I had ever been. Much like how time can seem to slow when you fall, leaving you able to see everything around you with…
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Episode 29. Never admit anything to anybody. Honesty is not the best policy.
19 Dec 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
Lethal stress can come at you no matter whether you’re onscreen or off. Actors in Hollywood have committed suicide by swallowing ant paste, Nembutal, or barbiturates. George Sanders (check out his performance in All About Eve) swallowed five bottles of pills in Barcelona and left two suicides notes. One in…
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Episode 28. I used to slip down to the beach and hold my head under the water just long enough to decide to come back up again…it seemed so ironical to feel like that, just when I was made a star.
19 Dec 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
Clara Bow wasn’t the only one who found Hollywood depressing. On a chilly, unusually clouded over, February afternoon in 2009 when I was 48, after the fourth week of shooting on the revived franchise, I received a call. It was Antoine. He told me he couldn’t make it to set…
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Episode 27 is introduced by Mabel Normand, who said, “Acting in the movies is like a cold — you get used to both after a while.”
13 Dec 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
Gifted with a glib tongue he moved quickly from never-featured actor, to production assistant, to assistant director, and rapidly ascended the dating scale (as he saw it) from the cute craft service gal who brought cucumber sushi snacks to camera at four in the afternoon, to the daughter of a…
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All creative people should be required to leave California for three months every year. Episode 26
12 Dec 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
In the words of Dorothy Gale, there’s no place like home. The light here is what made filmmakers move to California. It shines here most of the time, and there are certain places, certain times of year that take your breath away with sheer wonder. It’s a crying shame that…
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Now we come to episode 25 of the novel, in the words of Katharine Hepburn — life is hard, after all, it kills you.
6 Dec 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
The streets of Beverly Hills, unlike the streets of the Hollywood Hills, were nearly empty. One morning I saw a woman of about seventy, with the poise and stance of a dancer, shining long silver hair side-parted like Veronica Lake — probably just as it had been when she was…
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Episode 24. People with nerves should never go into the movies, and people without nerve can’t.
5 Dec 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
I loved recording this chapter, it’s got Hollywood history, everlasting friendship, and of course some very strange goings-on… There we sat, the mogul’s daughter turned academic, the copywriter turned designer, the semi-profane raconteur turned show runner, the pragmatist turned legal advocate, and me; the nanny turned studio executive. It was…
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Episode 23. Hollywood is apt to make one lose perspective on life. It takes a steady hand to keep your sense of balance… Luise Ranier
28 Nov 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
We are all the lead character in our personal narrative yet this bothered me. Behind the scenes was my forté, I wasn’t ready for a starring role, never had been. Why was that? And why couldn’t I stop thinking about myself in relation to Cooper? What also bothered me…
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Episode 22. If you’re gonna to be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.
22 Nov 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
Chapter 20, in which Billie travels to Vegas and comes to a seismic realization. I tended to think of sleep as something healing, freshening, and cleansing. I traced this somewhat peculiar notion to parental influence. I distinctly remembered – though I couldn’t have been more than four at the time…
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Episode 21. Hollywood is like a one-night stand, unless one is careful.
21 Nov 2020· BEGUILING HOLLYWOOD
Merle Oberon said that thing about Hollywood and one night stands. We’ll talk about her joy ride with David Niven later. Now we’re back to the story of Billie and chapter 19 — A film set is a constantly shifting sea. It’s usually crowded concentrated controlled chaos — until it’s…
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Episodes

Episode 32. It’s said in Hollywood that you should always forgive your enemies — because you never know when you’ll have to work with them.

Episode 31. I always say that if a woman will tell you her age, she will tell you anything.

Episode 30. Every star I know in Hollywood acknowledges the same fact. With luck you can climb. Without it, your brakes don’t work even when you coast.

Episode 29. Never admit anything to anybody. Honesty is not the best policy.

Episode 28. I used to slip down to the beach and hold my head under the water just long enough to decide to come back up again…it seemed so ironical to feel like that, just when I was made a star.

Episode 27 is introduced by Mabel Normand, who said, “Acting in the movies is like a cold — you get used to both after a while.”

All creative people should be required to leave California for three months every year. Episode 26

Now we come to episode 25 of the novel, in the words of Katharine Hepburn — life is hard, after all, it kills you.

Episode 24. People with nerves should never go into the movies, and people without nerve can’t.

Episode 23. Hollywood is apt to make one lose perspective on life. It takes a steady hand to keep your sense of balance… Luise Ranier

Episode 22. If you’re gonna to be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.

Episode 21. Hollywood is like a one-night stand, unless one is careful.