Free-For-All-Friday: Publicity Illustrations from the Past (Part 2)

Like last week’s Free-For-All-Friday entry, the following images have to do with publicity. Except they’re not photographs, they’re illustrations–and beautiful ones at that! I’ve seen some of the illustrations in their original form (I have the Katharine Hepburn one somewhere on my hard drive), but they’re much more striking and lovelier in their illustrated version.

Along with the main illustrations, are tinier ones with little factual trivia blurbs. For instance, did you know that Joan Blondell’s diet consisted for skimmed milk and potatoes for a period of three days at a time (The carbs! The carbs!)? Or that Joel McCrea was one of the only actors never to use any sort of stage makeup? It might also interest you to know that Victor McLaglen cooked all the meals when he went camping and that the divine Tallulah Bankhead was an avid oil painter. Like the publicity packages of the time, I’m not sure how many of these “facts” are true, but they’re sure fun to read.

Click images for larger versions:

Tallulah Bankhead, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery:

Constance Bennett, Joan Bennett, Joan Blondell, Claudette Colbert

Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Jimmy Durante

Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Katharine Hepburn, Joel McCrea, Victor McLaglen

Also to go with yesterday’s penny-pinching post (say that three times fast), I forgot to link to this site that features old Montana Bar and Restaurant Menus. See how much a toasted sandwich and french fries would cost at the Coffee Cup Cafe or if you’re in the mood for drink, perhaps the drink list at The Club would be more to your liking. Only $.35 for a Daiquiri? I’m there!

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Free-For-All-Friday: Publicity Shots from the Past (Part 1)

Another group of images for your enjoyment! This time, I’m posting Publicity Shots from the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Over the years, I’ve collected them from around the internet and I thought I would share them with you today.

However, I’ve always wondered what their source was. In the 1933 shots, there are numbers at the bottom of each page, so I’m assuming they’re from a book the studios sent out. Was this something available to the public? It doesn’t seem to be from a specific studio, but a grouping of them. You have Clark Gable (MGM) with Claudette Colbert (Paramount). I have to say though, a lot of the shots are gorgeous–especially the Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck ones (or maybe my love for Ball of Fire is showing!) If anyone has any information or knows what these are from, please let me know. They’re really gorgeous pictures though and the little biographical blurbs are fun to read as well. I’m also thinking that this is a book from the UK, since one of the Cagney stills says it’s from the movie Enemies of the Public, which was the UK title for The Public Enemy.

Also, I get a kick out of Greta Garbo’s little blurb: “Someday someone will find the real woman in her and she will cease to be Greta Garbo, film star. She will become, perhaps, Mrs. Somebody, housewife.” Yeah, right.

The 1930 shots of Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford are from their publicity packages. I doubt they wrote their own bios, although if I were alive at the time, I probably would have thought they did. I’m that naive.

Next week, part 2–but for now, Enjoy!

The 20’s – Norma Shearer (1925 & 1929)

1930 – Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford

1933: Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper 1 & 2, Joan Crawford

1933: Jimmy Durante & Buster Keaton, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Leslie Howard & Mary Pickford

1933: Fredric March, Laurence Olivier, George Raft, Barbara Stanwyck

1933 Movie Stills:

From left to right:
Picture 1 – James Cagney, Cimmaron, Ann Harding, Lee Tracy
Picture 2 – Cagney & Blondell, Joel McCrea & Fay Wray
Picture 3 – Cagney in Enemies of the Public
Picture 4 – Gary Cooper and Joel McCrea

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