Classic Stars – Then and Now
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is remembered as one of the defining Paul Newman films, the role that cemented his easy, roguish charm for a new generation. What almost no one remembers is that the studio didn’t want him for it at all. Newman wasn’t even their first choice for the part. He was … Read more
In the 1950s, Paul Newman had everything a rising star was supposed to want: a beautiful wife, three young children, and a career on the verge of exploding. Then he met Joanne Woodward on a film set, and everything he thought he wanted quietly fell apart. What followed was one of the biggest scandals of … Read more
In 1982, Paul Newman started bottling his own salad dressing as a joke gift for friends and neighbors. He never expected it to become a business. He certainly never expected it to become one of the most quietly radical acts of generosity in Hollywood history. Behind the folksy label and the twinkling blue eyes on … Read more
Marlon Brando spent his career playing men consumed by rage, guilt, and grief. In his final decades, he lived through a family tragedy so devastating that no performance could have prepared him for it. What happened inside his Mulholland Drive estate in 1990 would haunt him, and his family, for the rest of his life. … Read more
By 1971, Marlon Brando was considered a has-been. Once the most electrifying actor of his generation, a decade of box office flops and a reputation for being difficult on set had made studios wary of hiring him at all. When director Francis Ford Coppola wanted him for The Godfather, Paramount executives fought the decision every … Read more
In May 1955, Grace Kelly traveled to the Cannes Film Festival for a magazine photo shoot she nearly skipped entirely. By the end of the year, Hollywood’s reigning leading lady would trade her film career for a crown, and she would never make another movie again. It remains one of the most extraordinary real-life fairy … Read more
Marlon Brando was one of the most private public figures in Hollywood history, and nowhere was that more true than in his family life. Behind the legendary performances was a household that, at times, included more than a dozen children from a string of different relationships. Brando almost never discussed it publicly. What emerges from … Read more
1955 might be the single most extraordinary year any actress has ever had. Grace Kelly won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Months later, at a magazine photo shoot she almost didn’t attend, she met the man she would marry. Few careers have ended on a higher note, or in a stranger sequence of events, … Read more
James Dean never saw himself become a legend. When he died on September 30, 1955, only one of his three films had been released. The performance that would define him forever, Rebel Without a Cause, hadn’t even reached theaters yet. He was twenty-four years old, driving his brand-new Porsche to a road race in Salinas, … Read more
On September 13, 1982, Princess Grace of Monaco set off on a familiar drive down the winding mountain roads above the principality, roads she had traveled countless times before. She would never complete the journey. The fairy tale that began with a magazine photo shoot in 1955 ended twenty-seven years later on a stretch of … Read more