4

Before Lauren Bacall was a movie star, she was a nineteen-year-old model whose magazine cover changed the entire course of her life. A chance photograph, spotted by exactly the right person, launched a career that would span more than six decades. The story of how she got that first break remains one of the more … Read more

On November 29, 1981, Natalie Wood went missing from a yacht anchored off Catalina Island. Her body was found in the water hours later. More than four decades on, the exact circumstances of her death remain one of Hollywood’s most enduring mysteries. The case was reopened by investigators decades after her death, and questions about … Read more

By the time most children are starting school, Natalie Wood was already a working professional actress. She appeared in her first film at age four and had become a genuine Hollywood veteran before she turned nine. Unlike so many child stars who struggled to transition into adult careers, Wood managed a remarkably successful crossover, becoming … Read more

In July 1985, Rock Hudson’s publicist confirmed what tabloids had been speculating about for weeks: the leading man had AIDS. He became the first major Hollywood star to be publicly identified with the disease, at a time when it was still widely misunderstood and deeply stigmatized. The announcement sent shockwaves through the country, forcing a … Read more

For decades, Rock Hudson was one of Hollywood’s most bankable leading men, cast opposite the era’s biggest actresses in one romantic role after another. Behind that carefully constructed image was a truth the studio system worked hard, and often ruthlessly, to keep hidden. Hudson was gay, at a time when the revelation could have ended … Read more

Doris Day never planned on becoming a singer. As a teenager, her only ambition was to dance professionally. A single car accident at fifteen years old shattered that dream, and unexpectedly opened the door to the career that would define the rest of her life. It remains one of the more unlikely origin stories in … Read more

At the height of her fame, Doris Day was one of the biggest box office draws in America. When she finally stepped back from Hollywood, she didn’t chase a comeback or a farewell tour. She quietly moved to a ranch and devoted the rest of her life to animals. It became one of the more … Read more

Gregory Peck nearly passed on To Kill a Mockingbird, unsure that a quiet, small-scale drama about a small-town lawyer would matter much to audiences or his own career. It went on to win him his only Academy Award and become one of the most beloved films in American history. Peck himself later called it the … Read more

Gregory Peck built a career playing men of quiet strength and moral conviction. In 1975, he faced a private tragedy that tested every bit of that strength: the loss of his eldest son, Jonathan, to suicide. It was a loss Peck almost never discussed publicly for the rest of his life. A Son Following His … Read more

For twenty-six years, Katharine Hepburn loved a man she could never publicly claim as her own. Spencer Tracy never divorced his wife, and the two carefully hid one of Hollywood’s most enduring romances from the press until his death. It remains one of the most quietly devoted love stories in Hollywood history, conducted almost entirely … Read more