Showbiz History: Hedy's Nude Scene and Paul Dano's Debut

4 random things that happened on this day, January 20h, in showbiz history

1933 The infamous erotic drama Extase (Ecstacy) starring Hedy Lamarr, and filmed simultaneously in three languages (German, Czech, French) premieres in Czechoslovakia. It would take years to travel the Globe since it kept running into trouble with censors due to Hedy's nude scenes and being one of the very first movies to depict a female orgasm (Hedy's perfect face in close-up). Famously brainy Lamarr helped translate the original Czech screenplay into German and French for filming...

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Adrian, God of Glamour

by Cláudio Alves

Born Adrian Adolph Greenberg, the designer best known as Adrian was one of the most influential costumers in Hollywood history. After working in his family business of millinery, Adrian went on to study costume design in New York and Paris and later found work dressing the starlets of Broadway. His talents soon took him to Hollywood, where he found a home from the mid-1920s to the 1940s, designing the costumes for many an MGM classic. Throughout his tenure in Tinsel Town, Adrian perfected the on and offscreen looks of such great divas as Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Vivien Leigh, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, and others. Among them, his most essential collaborator and muse was the one and only Joan Crawford…

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Showbiz History: The Vamp, a Psycho, and The Others

8 random things that happened on this day in history (Aug 10th)...

1918 Today is the centennial of Salome, one of Theda Bara's key pictures. Sadly, the film is lost as are so many silents of historic significance and almost all of Theda's films. She was nicknamed 'The Vamp' setting an archetype that would stay with the cinema forever basically. Theda was in her 40s by the time sound killed off the silents; she never even attemped a talkie.

1933 Hedy Lamarr marries her first husband (of six!) when she is just 19 years old. If you haven't yet watched Bombshell the Hedy Lamarr story on Netflix I urge you to do so. She's fascinating. Currently both Diane Kruger and Gal Gadot are planning to play her in different biographical projects for film and television. 

1950 Sunset Boulevard, only one of the all time greatest films, has its world premiere at Radio City Musical Hall in NYC

1959 Rosanna Arquette born in NYC. She's the first child in what will become a bustling family of acting siblings.  

1960 Antonio Banderas born in Málaga Spain. Meanwhile over in Los Angeles Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho premieres in Los Angeles. Banderas will later play three psychos superbly for Pedro Almodovar in Law of Desire, Tie Me Up Tie Me Down! and The Skin I Live In. 

1971 Justin Theroux is born in DC. 

2001 The Others opens in movie theaters just two months after Moulin Rouge! making it the summer Nicole Kidman went supernova.

2007 Stardust opens in movie theaters with Michelle Pfeiffer terrorizing Claire Danes and Charlie Cox with her ooh ah ah sorcery.

Doc Corner: 'Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story'

More often than not, biographic documentaries can feel staid in the way they so relentlessly follow a basic Point A to Point B narrative. It is understandable, really. After all, one must suppose that if somebody is interesting enough to have a documentary made about them, then they must be interesting enough to sustain 90 minutes without the need for their story to be gussied up with stylistic bells and tricky whistles.

Still, watching as many of these sort of films as I do, it can grow tiresome and can take me out of whatever spell the filmmaker hopes to cast.

And then there is a movie like Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. This is a film that it would be easy to pigeonhole before the opening scene has even begun - and it’s true that Alexandra Dean’s film adheres to a very traditional birth-to-death narrative. But what makes the film so interesting beyond its subject is the way it turns what could be perceived as just standard bio-doc delivery into a unique advantage.

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Diane Kruger to Broadcast Hedy Lamarr's Hidden WWII History as Producer, Star of Miniseries

by Daniel Crooke

 Fresh off her Best Actress victory at this year's Cannes Film Festival for Fatih Akin's In the Fade (as well as Germany's official decision to submit the film as their Foreign Language Oscars play) Diane Kruger is out for revenge once more - this time, to rewrite the half-finished story of Classical Hollywood Cinema icon Hedy Lamarr for a new miniseries in which she plans to produce and star. Long defined by her immaculate beauty in films such as Samson and Delilah and Algiers, Lamarr's brains have shone a longer, even more luminous legacy on the modern world thanks to her penchant for invention. While ignored at the time, her work laid the bedrock for much of modern communication - including WiFi and Bluetooth...

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