ROSESSEQUE

her soul belongs to hopeless bits scattered everywhere

[rosesseque]

Florian David Fitz is the most handsome and charming actor I have ever seen. I do not understand a single German word but have a special interest in him since that one afternoon while I was on vacation abroad more than ten years ago, when I coincidentally became aware that there was a TV-series called "Doctor's Diary". Whenever I saw him throughout the years, he managed to enchant me all over again. He still does. How come man? How can you be so beautiful? Science, please explain this.

[rosesseque]

"Bazen beni sadece param için sevdiğine inanacağım geliyor..."

Turan Seyfioğlu ve Neriman Köksal, Lütfi Akad'ın "Katil" filminde, 1953.

[allthingseurope]

Vétheuil, France (by Michel)

[tomdestry]

Have you ever noticed how grateful you are to see daylight again after coming through a long, dark tunnel? Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) dir. Frank Capra

[relightthestars]

Paris (France)

[robbielewis-deactivated20260214]

L’Arc de Triomphe, Paris

[rosesseque]

Caeleb Dressel looks like the possession of Poseidon without his shirt on but when his clothes on, he looks like a cute college nerd who happens to have a sporty fashion sense.

[flowerais-deactivated20211031]

happiness is:

the smell of rain

seeing flowers grow

being excited about something

ice cream on a hot day

being in bed

listening to good songs

smelling nice

giving and receiving compliments

the kindness of strangers

being with friends

reading a good book

being proud of every small victory

buying new treats for yourself

the smell of pastries in a bakery

blue skies and pretty views

[notes-on-film]

Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)

[rosesseque]

Robert Taylor and Eleanor Powell in "BROADWAY MELODY OF 1938" (1937)

"I think we better have some rules about this thing. Now, in the first place, it's going to be nothing but hard work from now on. Morning, noon and night, never stop. You mustn't think about anything or anybody, just your work. There going to be a lot of headaches, a lot of heartaches before the show opens. And then, if we are still talking to each other, we will talk about us."

[rosesseque]

" ...You look like something out of Vogue."

Robert Taylor in Private Number (1936)

[wehadfacesthen]

Robert Taylor, 1935

[rosesseque]

I think this is one of the best portraits of him showing his real self, since he had always been a melancholic and solitary person. He deserves a better recognition of his acting capability, which was mostly overlooked and even attacked because of his exceptional beauty...

[mattybing1025]

Garbo believed that most of her leading men were in love with her, and perhaps she was right, but she dismissed most of them to author Antoni Gronowicz.  Of Gable she said, “He knew his short-comings, which I had spotted right away, including a stiffness that was close to the quality of wood."  Robert Montgomery "showed more enthusiasm than talent."  Garbo, on the other hand, seemed to have a soft spot for Bob.  "He was a very well brought up young man, a bit shy perhaps,” Garbo recalled.  “I was often actually rather ill during filming.  He used to have a gramophone with him that he would play because he knew I liked music.  It helped distract me."       

But early on in the filming, which began in late July of 1936, Garbo kept her distance from her leading man.  Bob didn’t know exactly what to make of this distance.  He had always enjoyed good relationships with his leading ladies and was fascinated by Garbo, as most of her leading men were.  Again, Garbo may have misinterpreted his friendliness for love.  "Robert Taylor was most attentive, trying without success to make me respond to his love,” recalled Garbo years later.  “I noticed his ardor, and I became especially patient with him in explaining how he must act, since he was young and inexperienced.  But I never spent any time with him in the evening after work."  Bob later conceded that "I was scared to death at the thought of appearing opposite Garbo in Camille.   

But slowly yet surely Bob made inroads and was able to crack through and forge a relationship with the elusive Garbo.  She was "an uncanny craftsman with a playful sense of humor,” Bob would later recall.  His solicitousness deeply impressed her; not only playing his gramophone to calm her tattered nerves, but his innate kindness.  Between scenes Bob began telling her of his upbringing in Nebraska, “…he told me that his best friend during his youth in Nebraska had been a Swede,"  Garbo recalled years later.  "I never liked sitting in the sun.  I have delicate skin and have to be careful not to get sun burnt.  But Robert Taylor was the exact opposite.  He worshiped the sun.  And then he was forced to abstain from the outdoor life for the weeks we were filming since we both had to be equally pale… he was actually a kind and well-bred man."    

For Bob, working on Camille had been the most exciting event of his career up to that time.  In his usual modest and self-deprecating way, he came to think of it as an education and Garbo as one of his great teachers.  When the film premiered in Stockholm, it was Bob who was there, not Garbo.  Garbo was later very touched to learn that while in Stockholm Bob sent her mother, "twelve gorgeous orchids."   While Bob was able to crack through the fabled Garbo reserve while making the picture, they went their own ways afterward and Bob only saw the great Garbo once more, years later, when she returned to MGM long after she had retired.  She was sitting in the commissary when Bob and a friend walked in.  "My companion suggested I go over and say hello,” Bob recalled.  “I would no more go over to Garbo than I would drop dead in the commissary.  I respect her feeling for privacy too much."  Though she and Bob never spoke to each other again after filming Camille, a residual of regard remained with Garbo for this nice young man with the good manners who cared enough about her to try and comfort her during the difficult days of filming.  When she heard, more than thirty years later, that Bob had died, at only fifty-seven, Garbo broke down and cried.

[mattybing1025]

–Excerpt from Robert Taylor: A Biography by Charles Tranberg

[rosesseque]

Donna Reed wrote "I have wonderful memories of 'It's a Wonderful Life'!" on a promotional photograph of the film before she signed it for a fan, and James Stewart wrote under her note, "And I have wonderful memories of Donna Reed and 'It's a Wonderful Life'."

Two years after making "It's A Wonderful Life", Donna Reed was cast as "Ethel Stratton" for "The Stratton Story". In 1984, she recalled, "Van Johnson was cast as Stratton, but something happened and they cast Jimmy. I liked Van but I was thrilled when they announced Jimmy was going to do it. I thought we were pretty good together in 'It’s a Wonderful Life'. But Jim asked that they take me off the picture too, and they replaced me with June Allyson [Allyson and Stewart were once an item]. When I asked why, I was told that Jimmy was fighting for his professional life. I said, 'What do you think I’m fighting for?' And I was. I didn’t work for MGM again. The pictures I made got worse, except for 'From Here to Eternity' [for which she won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress], and my career never did recover. So I’m mad at Jimmy for wrecking my career... I was at Metro for eight years. When they were stumped with me, they did one of three things: They put me in a 'B', they loaned me out, or they let me sit."

Stewart admitted to biographer Michael Munn that it was his choice to replace Reed, saying: "I had to have a hit, and as much as I liked Donna Reed... And as good an actress as she is... Which she proved in 'From Here to Eternity'... The sad fact is that on 'It's a Wonderful Life' we just didn’t have any chemistry... On screen or off. We just didn’t hit it off. And I think the film suffered... It was one of the weaknesses in the film. Capra thought so too. He once said to me, 'Jim, if only we could have had someone like Margaret Sullavan or Ginger Rogers, but your wife in the picture has to be so ordinary, and you can’t cast Margaret or Ginger to play ordinary women.' I felt just so bad about Donna not being in the [Stratton] film... But I needed someone who was going to play a woman who was going to be a hundred and ten per cent supportive of her husband... And I wasn’t convinced Donna could pull that off, because we just didn’t hit it off. Things like that show up on the screen. And I feel guilty."

According to Paul Petersen, who played Reed's son on "The Donna Reed Show", James Stewart was thrown by the casting of Donna Reed. Referring to her, Stewart told him, "She turned out to be the embodiment of goodness, and got me so disconcerted that I kept putting off that kiss scene, you know, when we’re in that tight two-shot on the telephone? We put off doing that scene for weeks. I was so nervous. There was real electricity in the air. I asked Donna if she wanted to rehearse and she said, ‘Why don’t we just do it?’ and Capra, knowing what was going on, agreed. So there we were, cheek to cheek, no rehearsals, hormones out of control, and Capra says, ‘Action!’ Well, we did it in one take. One of the best things I’ve ever done."

Actor Robert Osborne, who was sitting next to Reed at the AFI's tribute to Frank Capra in 1982, revealed that when both Capra and Stewart praised her about how great she was in "It's A Wonderful Life" during their speeches, Reed eventually turned to him and said: "Isn't this interesting? At the time I was blamed for the failure of the film and now they're saying how wonderful I was in it."

After Reed's death in 1986, James Stewart was one of the few celebrities to attend to her funeral. While giving an eulogy, he said: "I’ll always remember her as a wonderful woman and as my wife in 'It’s a Wonderful Life'. I don’t know of anybody who could have played the role better. She was absolutely marvellous."

[wildspringday]

the philadelphia story + f a c e l e s s

[allthingseurope]

Lisbon (by ErWin)

[incredibletales]

“Well, you come to a time in your life when you get tired of going to cafes and dance halls every night. You want to improve yourself.” JAMES STEWART as Alfred Kralik in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) dir. Ernst Lubitsch

[rosesseque]

"There is no charm equal to the tenderness of heart. Warmth and tenderness of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the clearness of head in the world, for attraction."

Happy birthday to you Mr. Stewart, from decades afar... 🖤