we have the stars

dani. 25. she/her. mostly old hollywood. a lot of marilyn monroe. main. lb.

[norrmajeane]

“I'm poison, Swede, to myself and everybody around me. I'd be afraid to go with anyone I love for the harm I’d do them.”

Ava Gardner as Kitty Collins in The Killers (1946), dir. Robert Siodmak

[sparklejamesysparkle]

Eartha Kitt and her rambunctious "Kitt-cat" at home on Riverside Drive in New York during Eartha's interview with veteran news journalist Edward R. Murrow on the television program Person to Person, originally broadcast live by CBS on September 10th, 1954. While setting up their heavy lights and camera equipment (which included a large transmitter placed on the building's flat rooftop, shown below), the CBS crew accidentally caused a large section of Eartha's recently installed ceiling to plummet to the floor shortly before the broadcast went live, hence the cat's edginess and Eartha's soothing cuddles while she tried to help calm her frightened kitty.

[summertimenoir]

A good love scene should be about something else besides love.

Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame as Dixon Steele and Laurel Gray - In a Lonely Place (1951)

[citizenscreen]

Pearl Bailey photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1946.

[cineper]

"Lord, you sure knew what you were doing when you brung me to this very cell at this very time. A man with ten thousand dollars his somewhere, and a widder in the makin´ ."

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Director. Charles Laughton.

[ecultured]

nina simone photographed by michael ochs in 1967

[gatabella]

Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Conspirator, 1949

[ironmaidenhead]

Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) is probably the most movie-besotted movie of all time. Start with the premise. Gloria Swanson, a silent-film star whose career was derailed by the talkies, is Norma Desmond, a silent-film star whose career was ended by the talkies. Her butler-chauffeur, Max, turns out to be a once-acclaimed silent-film director and Norma’s ex-husband. He’s creepily–and brilliantly–played by Erich von Stroheim, a once-acclaimed silent-film director who’d been reduced to playing character parts, mostly Nazis in World War II-pictures.

The most meta scene comes shortly after screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) takes up residence in Norma’s decrepit mansion, where he serves as a combination amanuensis/boy toy. He tells us that Norma throws regular movie nights, just for the two of them; Max is projectionist. The repertoire, of course, is her own films. We see a bit from one of them, a scene where the young Norma’s face is illuminated by candles.

The clip is from Queen Kelly, a 1929 film that, more than any other single factor, derailed the careers of Swanson (the star) and von Stroheim, the director. At least he was the director until producer Joseph Kennedy (Swanson’s lover and JFK’s father) fired him because the scenes he’d produced were too explicit and dark. Because von Stroheim retained the rights for what he’d shot, the film had never seen in the United States–until Sunset Boulevard. [x]

[screengoddess]

Rita Hayworth

[sbrown82]

Dorothy Dandridge, circa 1953.

[perfectlymarilynmonroe]

Marilyn Monroe photographed by Earl Leaf at Johnny Hyde’s home, 1950. Marilyn loved to garden and spent hours tending to plants at her homes throughout her lifetime.

[perfectlymarilynmonroe]

Marilyn Monroe photographed by Earl Leaf at Johnny Hyde’s home, 1950. Marilyn loved to garden and spent hours tending to plants at her homes throughout her lifetime.

[vintage-every-day]

Sidney Poitier with Lee Grant and Rod Steiger on the set of 𝑰𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 (1967).

[frailnbedazzled-deactivated2025]

Vintage Art Deco Powder Boxes

[voguefashion]

Audrey Hepburn and designer Hubert de Givenchy photographed by Jean-Claude Sauer wearing designs from Givenchy’s Autumn/Winter 1991-1992 collection for Paris Match, at Hubert de Givenchy’s Rue de Grenelle Paris apartment in France, September 1991. 

[voguefashion]

Grace Kelly photographed by Alan Sharland for LIFE Magazine, 1954.

[gatabella]

Ava Gardner in Rome, Italy, 1954