Grey Poupon "The Lost Footage"
Starring my brother Rod McCarey
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Video starring my brother Rod McCarey, Fun isn't it?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqIZa3PTX6c]
Starring my brother Rod McCarey
Starring my brother Rod McCarey
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Jane Russell & Marilyn Monroe at Grauman's Chinese Theatre
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640"]
This is a picture of Marilyn Monroe & Jane Russell the night of the premiere of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." Taken at the Gramaun's Cihnese Theatre on June 26th, 1953.[/caption]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a_p9M6WKt8]
This is a picture of Marilyn Monroe & Jane Russell the night of the premiere of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." Taken at the Gramaun's Cihnese Theatre on June 26th, 1953.[/caption][youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a_p9M6WKt8]
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Barnaby Conrad Jr. dies at 90; bullfighter, artist, saloonkeeper founded Santa Barbara Writers Conference
[caption id="attachment_323" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
He was connected to me in getting me started writing novels. It has been a great experience, I was lucky to run into a man like him with his knowledge and it sure has treated me well. I just wanted you all to know him, he has written over 37 books so look him up.
-William Louis Grandner[/caption]
When Barnaby Conrad was nearly killed in a 1958 bullfight, his celebrity pals were buzzing about it at Sardi's in New York.
"Did you hear about poor Barnaby?" Eva Gabor asked Noel Coward in her thick Hungarian accent. "He was terribly gored in Spain."
"Oh, thank heavens," he sighed. "I thought you said he was bored."
That would have been a surprise.
Barnaby Conrad Jr. — bullfighter, bon vivant, portrait artist, saloonkeeper to the stars, author of 36 books, and founder of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, led a life that was anything but boring. Ninety years old, he died Tuesday in his Carpinteria home after a battle with congestive heart disease.
"He wasn't necessarily the world's best novelist or the best bullfighter or best artist or best piano player or best nightclub owner, but he was very good at all of them," said his son Barnaby Conrad III. "He was like a pentathlete."
Conrad's last work of fiction, a novel about presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth, was published when he was 88. Months later, he came out with his last work of nonfiction: "101 Best Sex Scenes Ever Written: An Erotic Romp through Literature for Writers and Readers."
While most of his work was nonfiction, Conrad was best known for his 1952 novel "Matador," one of the many books that were generated by his love of bullfighting. He knew the greatest bullfighters of his day and fought bulls himself as "El Nino de California" — the California Kid — at 47 corridas in Spain, Mexico and Peru.
Born into a wealthy family in San Francisco on March 27, 1922, Conrad attended the Taft School in Connecticut and studied art at Yale, where he graduated in 1943. His charcoal portraits of literary friends like Truman Capote and James Michener hang in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. He also painted Sinclair Lewis, the novelist he briefly served as a personal assistant after World War II.
Taking art classes one summer in Mexico City, Conrad was swept away by the lure of bullfighting.
"Fueled on youth and tequila, he jumped into the bullring one afternoon and caped the bull with his Brooks Brothers raincoat," his son said. "He was lucky he didn't get himself killed."
Instructed by seasoned bullfighters, Conrad kept at it and was gashed so severely in his right leg that he was declared unfit for military service. Instead, he joined the State Department and was named vice consul in Seville, Spain. The job gave him the chance to write and chase bulls — a good combination in an era when Ernest Hemingway set the tone for young men who wanted to write.
Conrad's first novel, "The Innocent Villa," published in 1948, drew little notice. His second novel, "Matador," a fictional account of the last day in the life of the legendary Spanish bullfighter Manolete, sold 3 million copies and was translated into 28 languages.
At 30, Conrad was flying high and opened a glitzy San Francisco nightspot he named after his best-seller. Herb Caen, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist, said it was fortunate that Conrad's publisher had made him change the original title.
"Who'd ever go to eat at a restaurant called Day of Fear?" Caen asked.
Night after night, El Matador drew A-list patrons: Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Marilyn Monroe, William Randolph Hearst. Conrad, who wrote that he played "what might generously be called fraternity piano," sometimes entertained but more often simply mingled.
Even as a club owner, Conrad continued to write. Years later, he received a fan letter from crime writer Elmore Leonard, who told Conrad that the opening sentence of "La Fiesta Brava" was the best he'd ever read.
It was about the death of Manolete: "On August 27, 1947, a multimillionaire and a bull killed each other in Linares, Spain, and plunged an entire nation into deep mourning."
Tired of the surging sleaze in San Francisco — symbolized for Conrad by a topless shoeshine stand down the street from his club — he and his family moved to the Santa Barbara area in the early 1970s.
By then, his machismo was so established that Times columnist Jack Smith wrote of meeting him: "I was pleased to see he was growing bald. It eased the envy."
"But a boyish charm remained," Smith wrote with tongue in cheek. "A very bad man, one might guess, for women and bulls."
In 1972, Conrad founded the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, an annual extravaganza bringing together agents, writers, publishers and, over the years, literary legends such as William Styron, Joan Didion and William F. Buckley Jr. Conrad sold the conference in 2004, but it continues today.
Conrad wrote what he knew. In the 1980s, he chronicled his battle with alcoholism in a book called "Time Is All We Have."
Over decades, he settled into a daily routine of painting and writing — in longhand. Triple-bypass surgery in 2010 improved his health but, his son said, he started declining last year.
Bedridden but still sharp, he was reading a book when his doctor told him he had just three or four weeks to live.
"I guess I'd better read faster," he said.
He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Mary Nobles Conrad of Carpinteria; four children, author Barnaby III of San Francisco, artist Cayetana Conrad of Carpinteria, author Winston S. Conrad of Kamuela, Hawaii, and fashion designer Kendall Conrad Cameron of Montecito; two stepsons, William A. Slater of Los Angeles and Michael Slater of Ventura; eight grandchildren; and five step-grandchildren.
Source
He was connected to me in getting me started writing novels. It has been a great experience, I was lucky to run into a man like him with his knowledge and it sure has treated me well. I just wanted you all to know him, he has written over 37 books so look him up.-William Louis Grandner[/caption]
When Barnaby Conrad was nearly killed in a 1958 bullfight, his celebrity pals were buzzing about it at Sardi's in New York.
"Did you hear about poor Barnaby?" Eva Gabor asked Noel Coward in her thick Hungarian accent. "He was terribly gored in Spain."
"Oh, thank heavens," he sighed. "I thought you said he was bored."
That would have been a surprise.
Barnaby Conrad Jr. — bullfighter, bon vivant, portrait artist, saloonkeeper to the stars, author of 36 books, and founder of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, led a life that was anything but boring. Ninety years old, he died Tuesday in his Carpinteria home after a battle with congestive heart disease.
"He wasn't necessarily the world's best novelist or the best bullfighter or best artist or best piano player or best nightclub owner, but he was very good at all of them," said his son Barnaby Conrad III. "He was like a pentathlete."
Conrad's last work of fiction, a novel about presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth, was published when he was 88. Months later, he came out with his last work of nonfiction: "101 Best Sex Scenes Ever Written: An Erotic Romp through Literature for Writers and Readers."
While most of his work was nonfiction, Conrad was best known for his 1952 novel "Matador," one of the many books that were generated by his love of bullfighting. He knew the greatest bullfighters of his day and fought bulls himself as "El Nino de California" — the California Kid — at 47 corridas in Spain, Mexico and Peru.
Born into a wealthy family in San Francisco on March 27, 1922, Conrad attended the Taft School in Connecticut and studied art at Yale, where he graduated in 1943. His charcoal portraits of literary friends like Truman Capote and James Michener hang in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. He also painted Sinclair Lewis, the novelist he briefly served as a personal assistant after World War II.
Taking art classes one summer in Mexico City, Conrad was swept away by the lure of bullfighting.
"Fueled on youth and tequila, he jumped into the bullring one afternoon and caped the bull with his Brooks Brothers raincoat," his son said. "He was lucky he didn't get himself killed."
Instructed by seasoned bullfighters, Conrad kept at it and was gashed so severely in his right leg that he was declared unfit for military service. Instead, he joined the State Department and was named vice consul in Seville, Spain. The job gave him the chance to write and chase bulls — a good combination in an era when Ernest Hemingway set the tone for young men who wanted to write.
Conrad's first novel, "The Innocent Villa," published in 1948, drew little notice. His second novel, "Matador," a fictional account of the last day in the life of the legendary Spanish bullfighter Manolete, sold 3 million copies and was translated into 28 languages.
At 30, Conrad was flying high and opened a glitzy San Francisco nightspot he named after his best-seller. Herb Caen, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist, said it was fortunate that Conrad's publisher had made him change the original title.
"Who'd ever go to eat at a restaurant called Day of Fear?" Caen asked.
Night after night, El Matador drew A-list patrons: Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Marilyn Monroe, William Randolph Hearst. Conrad, who wrote that he played "what might generously be called fraternity piano," sometimes entertained but more often simply mingled.
Even as a club owner, Conrad continued to write. Years later, he received a fan letter from crime writer Elmore Leonard, who told Conrad that the opening sentence of "La Fiesta Brava" was the best he'd ever read.
It was about the death of Manolete: "On August 27, 1947, a multimillionaire and a bull killed each other in Linares, Spain, and plunged an entire nation into deep mourning."
Tired of the surging sleaze in San Francisco — symbolized for Conrad by a topless shoeshine stand down the street from his club — he and his family moved to the Santa Barbara area in the early 1970s.
By then, his machismo was so established that Times columnist Jack Smith wrote of meeting him: "I was pleased to see he was growing bald. It eased the envy."
"But a boyish charm remained," Smith wrote with tongue in cheek. "A very bad man, one might guess, for women and bulls."
In 1972, Conrad founded the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, an annual extravaganza bringing together agents, writers, publishers and, over the years, literary legends such as William Styron, Joan Didion and William F. Buckley Jr. Conrad sold the conference in 2004, but it continues today.
Conrad wrote what he knew. In the 1980s, he chronicled his battle with alcoholism in a book called "Time Is All We Have."
Over decades, he settled into a daily routine of painting and writing — in longhand. Triple-bypass surgery in 2010 improved his health but, his son said, he started declining last year.
Bedridden but still sharp, he was reading a book when his doctor told him he had just three or four weeks to live.
"I guess I'd better read faster," he said.
He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Mary Nobles Conrad of Carpinteria; four children, author Barnaby III of San Francisco, artist Cayetana Conrad of Carpinteria, author Winston S. Conrad of Kamuela, Hawaii, and fashion designer Kendall Conrad Cameron of Montecito; two stepsons, William A. Slater of Los Angeles and Michael Slater of Ventura; eight grandchildren; and five step-grandchildren.
Source
Monday, February 18, 2013
Public outcry over Hughes’ bra
I knew Jane Russell well she said, " I met Mr. Hughes in 1941 it was Lords's accidents I was a"teetotaler, mean-spirited, right-wing, narrow, Conservative, Christian bigot, but not racist.
William Louis Gardner
William Louis Gardner
Friday, February 15, 2013
Public outcry over Hughes’ bra
[caption id="attachment_308" align="alignright" width="583"]
The bra that Howard Hughes supposedly created for Jane was fake, in reality she would place Kleenex's over her boobs and everybody thought it was a classic. -From Insider William Louis Gardner, author of "Confessions of a Hollywood Agent"[/caption]
Regardless, the emphasis on her breasts proved too much for the Hollywood Production Code Administration, which ordered cuts to the film. To obtain the Boards' required Seal of Approval, Hughes reluctantly removed about 40 feet, or a half-minute, of footage that featured Jane Russell's bosom. He still had problems getting the film distributed, so Hughes schemed to create a public outcry for his film to be banned. The resulting controversy generated enough interest to get The Outlaw into the theatres for one week in 1943, before being withdrawn due to objections by the Code censors. When the film was finally released in 1950, it was a box office hit.
Russell later asserted that she never wore Hughes' bra, and that Hughes never knew. This story is now considered to be an urban myth. -Xtimeline
The bra that Howard Hughes supposedly created for Jane was fake, in reality she would place Kleenex's over her boobs and everybody thought it was a classic. -From Insider William Louis Gardner, author of "Confessions of a Hollywood Agent"[/caption]In 1941, Director Howard Hughes, while filming the movie The Outlaw, felt that the camera did not do justice to Jane Russell's large bust. He employed his engineering skills to design an underwired, cantilevered bra to emphasise her assets. Hughes added rods of curved structural steel that were sewn into the brassiere below each breast. The rods were connected to the bra's shoulder straps. The arrangement allowed the breasts to be pulled upward and made it possible to move the shoulder straps away from the neck. The design allowed for any amount of bosom to be freely exposed.
Regardless, the emphasis on her breasts proved too much for the Hollywood Production Code Administration, which ordered cuts to the film. To obtain the Boards' required Seal of Approval, Hughes reluctantly removed about 40 feet, or a half-minute, of footage that featured Jane Russell's bosom. He still had problems getting the film distributed, so Hughes schemed to create a public outcry for his film to be banned. The resulting controversy generated enough interest to get The Outlaw into the theatres for one week in 1943, before being withdrawn due to objections by the Code censors. When the film was finally released in 1950, it was a box office hit.
Russell later asserted that she never wore Hughes' bra, and that Hughes never knew. This story is now considered to be an urban myth. -Xtimeline
The bra that Howard Hughes supposedly created for Jane was fake, in reality she would place Kleenex's over her boobs and everybody thought it was a classic. -From Insider William Louis Gardner, author of "Confessions of a Hollywood Agent"
Jane Russell calls Putin a Jerk
[caption id="attachment_307" align="aligncenter" width="251"]
Jane Russell movie star under contract to Howard Hughes for 20 years![/caption]
Jane Russell movie star under contract to Howard Hughes for 20 years![/caption]Jane Russell was responsible for bringing 51,000 orphans to live in the USA during 50's. Jane had the class Putin is a jerk and classless, agree? Jane also put together in Hollywood a huge Charity called WAIF [World Adoption International Fund]. It had great success, all the stars at that time became members. Jane also had a lot of influence over the Generals in Washington, that's how she was able to get those children here into the U.S.
-From Insider William Louis Gardner, author of “Confessions of a Hollywood Agent“
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Review for Confessions of a Hollywood Agent
Well I sure hope that most of Mr. Gardner's clients are dead or else he would be in real trouble. The seances and conversations in this fast paced book are so real and candid that one would think he was in the room! But WAIT he was in the room. ! This is the real McCoy, you don't need to read any other Hollywood tell all book. This one tells it ALL ! It is fun and stunning about all your favorite stars. I couldn't put it down, Don't miss this one, you will astound your friends with hard and funny truths here,
[caption id="attachment_265" align="alignright" width="400"]
Source: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-67747954/stock-vector-people-with-gun-silhouettes.html[/caption]
-Sam Carson F A I A
[caption id="attachment_265" align="alignright" width="400"]
Source: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-67747954/stock-vector-people-with-gun-silhouettes.html[/caption]-Sam Carson F A I A
Sunday, February 10, 2013
A Day With Mickey and Judy
Judy called Mickey and asked him if he would help her. She has a TV show at CBS and the bosses wanted to see her. Her ratings where slipping and they wanted to meet at her home later in the day. She knew Mickey would help with some ideas. He was filming at MGM that day but she knew going to the studio would be a big problem. She hadn’t been there in eighteen years since they fired her. She blamed MGM for all her problems.
Mickey told me to pick her up at her home inBrentwood. Judy was panicking when I got there. She had five cars and told me to put a case of Blue Nun wine in the back seat. It turned out I never got any of her cars to start. We left in my car with the Blue Nun in my back seat. As we drove out of the driveway, she popped a pill. When we got to MGM I drove through the studio gates, she popped another pill. I felt like it was Gloria Swanson arriving at the gates ofParamountin “Sunset Boulevard”.
She said, ”Mickey and I worked every day on three musicals at the same time for the “Andy Hardy Films” it was making MGM a fortune and exhausting us. They gave us uppers and downers to keep up our energy for the dance numbers and long hours. We didn’t know we were being hooked”. Later in life, they both were under the influence. Mickey found Jesus and got the cure but Judy never got over the drugs or booze.
Mickey told me he was working at hotel in Reno, Nevada, sitting in a coffee shop when a blonde bus boy came up to his table and said; “Jesus loves you Mickey Rooney”. He was shocked and felt he had been saved. He jumped up from the table, rushed to the cashier, and said; “Where’s that blonde bus boy that was at my table?” “We don’t have a blonde bus boy, Mr. Rooney”.
Judy adored Mickey and he her, but there was no romance. Mickey had many girls he dated but he felt Judy was like a sister. We stopped at stage 15 where Mickey was filming. I took the case of Blue Nun from the back of my car and we went to his dressing room. Judy opened a bottle of wine and settled down and said; “Find Mickey”. I went on to the stage; Mickey was working on a RodSterling, “ Twilight Zone” show playing a gambler who owned money to a bookie who threatens him. Mickey was acting into the telephone the whole time, no other performer was in the show. He finishes the scene, and the crew applauds him. “Judy is here, we’ll meet you in the commissary for lunch”. I said.
I went back to the dressing room. Judy had found a French actor, with a French Poodle and was kissing and hugging the dog and drinking the wine. She was already high. I told the actor we had to leave for an appointment; to get rid him.
When we got to the commissary, it was packed with people, Judy was shaking. I opened the door and we walked in. The room went silent and then, whispers. We see Arthur Freed, the producer of “Meet me InSaint Louis,” of her best movies. “Look, its Arthur Freed, he’s not coming over here? Ah, he is. I, I, can’t stand him. What will I do?” she asked. “Relax. He’s smiling. Smile back. He just wants to say hello.” I said. Arthur says; “Judy, so good to see you, working on something again?” “Good to see you Arthur. No I’m seeing Mickey for lunch.” Judy looks and sees Mickey at table waving at us. We go to his table. Judy began to relax and looked like she was having a good time. I brought up to Mickey. “Do you have some ideas for her show? Judy looked like she wasn’t interested so I gave up. We went back to the dressing room and Mickey had to go back to the stage to finish the TV film. I loaded Judy into my car, she was drunk. As we left the Studio she pooped another pill. She said; “I hated every moment. You cannot imagine how terrible I feel. It brought back all those bad memories. I should have never come back.”
When I got on the freeway going back to her house, she was silent and looked over at the car next to us where a cat was sitting on a man’s shoulder. She let out a scream and said, “That cat is driving that car”. She dived to the floorboard of the car and stayed there until I got her home. The cars of the CBS Bosses were there in her driveway waiting. I thought, are they in for it. I thought, I said, “Good bye and good luck, Sweetheart”. I was glad she didn’t ask me to be in her meeting and drove off.
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