It’s Now Or Never, Elvis
Category: Celebrities
Mimicry
A Laugh A Minute
1953 Hillcrest Country Club
Comedians Groucho Marx, George Jessel, Milton Berle, Eddie Cantor (air-stabbing his pal), and Buddy Lester met daily for lunch.
Ripped At Sixty
Actor-comedian Joe E. Brown gets toweled off by wife Kathryn at his Brentwood home in 1951. She doesn’t seem to mind his toned 60-year-old physique. The two were married 55 years until his death in 1973.
He was one of the most popular American comedians in the 1930s and 1940s, with successful films like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Earthworm Tractors, and Alibi Ike. In his later career Brown starred in Some Like It Hot (1959), as Osgood Fielding III, in which he utters the famous punchline, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Doesn’t he look like the happiest camper ever? 
Can you tell who the woman is here with him? I’d recognize her anywhere.
That Moment When Michael Told Billie Jean The Kid Was Not His Son
A box in the attic revealed a hodgepodge of dolls, such as this Thriller Michael, redhaired mermaid, Little House on the Prairie with fabulous hair, and diminutive Mork from Ork.
Somehow I scored a Julie Stiles Barbie doll before she was even born.
They both like woodland creatures.
Even Jon Lovitz Would Take A Pass On These Pretzel Stick Elbows
I bet Henry Grossman thought this a grand image when he snapped it, but Morgan’s bony elbows gross me out. The shaded optical illusion brings to mind prisoners of war, not a sexy blonde bombshell. But maybe it’s not her arms that entice Jon Lovitz…
Little Leaf Phoenix
Thumbing through some mags from my teen years, I came across a July 1984 Teen Set that included this picture of the Phoenix family. The focus was River, on the cusp of fame, but one can spot his brother Joaquin (who had given himself the name of Leaf like his nature-related siblings) easily. And you can see where Joaquin got his looks. Isn’t he the spitting image of his dad?
River would be dead nine years later from drug-induced cardiac arrest, while Joaquin went on to critical acclaim for his numerous roles, from Gladiator to Walk The Line. But working with him can prove difficult. A strict vegan, he refuses to wear anything made from leather or use leather props. And his behavior is curious. Remember when he announced in 2008 that he had retired from acting to pursue a rapping career? Or his incoherent behavior on Letterman?
What the teen mag failed to mention is that the Phoenix children (also a made-up name; the real last name was Bottom) were born to parents in the Children of God cult and performed on the streets and at various talent contests to provide food and financial support for the family. But that doesn’t make good copy.
If The Cowardly Lion and Ralph Malph Had A Son
Bert Lahr as the lion + Donny Most as Ralph Malph (aka Mouth)
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P.S. Did you know Ralph’s middle name was Hector?
P.S.S. Did you know Bert Lahr’s real name was Irving Lahrheim?
Sensible Beachwear
Never one to be showy or go overboard, Liz Taylor sports a calf-length mink coat and three-pound bracelet as she walks her dogs in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat with her two sons, Michael and Christopher, in 1957.
Who could blame her for visiting southeast France, when it looks like this?
Here she is holding infant Christopher, whispering to husband #2 that she plans to separate from him the next year and eventually entertain five more husbands (and six more marriages).
But one thing is consistent: sensible beachwear.
Those rocky crags look comfie against bare thighs and taylor-made for high heels. See her pushing away both sons with a firm palm, while daughter Liza Todd (from husband #3) sits pensively, counting step-fathers.
Picasso’s Last Breath
Rare is the image depicting a celebrity’s last breath before his untimely demise. And yet here we see artist Pablo Picasso’s son (no, not his great-great grandson as one would logically deduce) Claude about to stab his elderly father for the crime of cubism.
Actually, the 74-year-old Picasso pictured here did not die until he was 91 in 1973, while having a dinner party with friends. And down he went. His then-wife, Jacqueline Roque, bitterly prevented son Claude (born of another woman’s loins) from attending the funeral. Not cool. Jacqueline made another bad decision in 1986 when she pointed a gun at herself and pulled the trigger. We don’t have a photo of that one.
Still Going At 99
The lady in black is Zsa Zsa Gabor (with husband #3 of 9 George Sanders schlepping the bags) chatting up Earl Blackwell at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.
Yes, nine husbands. “I am a marvelous housekeeper: Every time I leave a man I keep his house.”
Yes, she is 99 years old, just like the 1980 Toto song by the same name.
While none of us was alive when she was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936, most of our parents weren’t even born when she came into this world in 1917. A stamp cost two cents, women couldn’t vote, Buffalo Bill Cody was in his last year, Chaplin starred in silent films, and the “I Want You” poster, featuring Uncle Sam, attracted thousands of U.S. recruits to WWI duty.
Here she was on her 94th birthday with husband #9.
He plans to throw her a big party this summer to celebrate her 100th birthday (prematurely) and then return to Budapest, her original home, to spend the rest of her life.
I Pledge Allegiance…Or Do I?
Perhaps it was a spontaneous self-exam? Or halfway to a clutch-the-pearls moment? Was it smugness or disdain?
Place: Monte Carlo, 1959, Red Cross Gala
People: Peter Ustinov, Italian Baroness Afdera Franchetti, Elsa Maxwell, and Henry Fonda
In the late 1950s, when Jane Fonda asked her father how he prepared before going on stage, she was baffled by his answer, “I don’t know, I stand there, I think about my wife, Afdera, I don’t know.” Jane, a proponent of Method Acting, could not understand how effortlessly her father prepared for a role. (wikipedia)
He must not have thought about his fourth wife for long, however, as he divorced her in 1961 and moved on to wife #5.
No wonder Barbara Stanwyck gave him the look.
I Don't Get It 