Celebrity Then & Now

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

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

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

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

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

Brigitte Bardot was, without question, the biggest sex symbol of the 1960s, having appeared in forty-seven films by the time she reached her late thirties. Then, in 1973, at the absolute height of her fame, she simply walked away from acting entirely. She has never returned to film since, a decision that stunned an industry … Read more

Katharine Hepburn holds a record no other performer in Academy Awards history has matched: four Best Actress wins. What almost no one remembers is that she never once showed up to collect a single one of them in person. It remains one of the most unusual relationships any major star has ever had with Hollywood’s … Read more

Brigitte Bardot was barely eighteen years old when director Roger Vadim cast her in her first significant film role, a decision that launched not just her own career but an entirely new era of French cinema. The role almost went to someone else entirely, and had it, the trajectory of European film in the 1950s … Read more

Warren Beatty was offered the lead role in The Graduate, a role that ultimately went to Dustin Hoffman and turned an unknown actor into an overnight star. Beatty passed on it entirely. It remains one of the more consequential decisions in his long career, one he had his own clear reasons for making at the … Read more

For decades, Warren Beatty was one of the most famous bachelors in Hollywood, linked romantically to a long list of some of the era’s most celebrated leading ladies. Then, in 1992, at fifty-five years old, he married Annette Bening and settled down for good. Few in Hollywood expected the industry’s most notorious bachelor to ever … Read more