PPM revisits Manchester's Belle Vue amusement park - Picture ...

THE MAGIC OF
HOLLYWOOD
continued from page 29
Frank Sinatra seen at his
handprint ceremony on the
forecourt of Grauman’s
Chinese Theatre on 20
July 1965. Hollywood legends
have been imprinting
their hand and footprints
in soft cement
there since the Spring of
1927 when Mary Pickford
and Douglas Fairbanks
were immortalized in
that way. Sid Grauman
thought of the idea
when he saw Norma
Talmadge accidentally
step in the wet cement. In Betty Grable’s case an
imprint was made of her “million dollar” legs! (Mitock &
Sons, North Hollywood).
Republic Pictures
were formed in 1935 and took over the Mack
Sennett lot in Studio City. Known as the friendly studio,
Republic covered about 70 acres with 18 sound stages. It
was famous for producing B Westerns and serials. (Mike
Roberts Colour Production, Berkeley California).
The shooting of Robin Hood at the Fairbanks-Pickford studios
in 1922. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were
probably the biggest stars of the silents and Fairbanks
played the title role in this film. He is seen in the foreground
talking with some of the crew. A model of Nottingham
Castle was featured in one of the biggest sets ever
built in Hollywood. (Western Publishing & Novelty Co, Los
Angeles).
produced showing stars’
homes and two companies
which published such cards
were the Pacific Novelty
Company of San Francisco
and Los Angeles in the
1920s and 1930s and for
decades the Western Publishing
& Novelty Company.
The latter was probably the
most prolific of all Hollywood
The premiere of
Prince Valiant at the famous Grauman’s
Chinese Theatre in 1954. One of the first cinemascope productions
and shot largely in Britain, the movie starred
Robert Wagner, James Mason and Janet Leigh. (Colourpicture,
Boston, Mass).
postcard publishers with
many of their cards of the
“linen” type.
The correspondence
on some of these cards
makes interesting reading
and one in my collection
concerns Latin lover
Rudolph Valentino’s death
in 1926 at the age of only
31, an event which saw millions
of women go into
mourning. Part of the message
is “...Rudolph Valentino
sure left some wonderful
cars, household effects,
jewellery etc, the auction
sale was on for a week. I’d
The famous Paramount
Studios Administration block in the late
1930s. Jesse Lasky was one of the driving forces behind
the studio’s early success with Cecil B.De Mille its stage
director. Laskey and De Mille produced the first feature
film, The Squaw Man, in 1913 in an old barn, which now
houses the Hollywood Heritage Museum. (Los Angeles
Photo Postcard Co.)
30 Picture Postcard Monthly July 2010
This card was sent from Santa Monica to England in
November 1941, the writer commenting: “I am sitting on
the cliffs overlooking the beach homes of the movie
world.” Clark Gable and Carole Lombard bought the house
at Encino in 1938, then after Lombard was killed in a plane
crash in 1942, the house was Gable’s home until his death
in 1960. (Western Publishing & Novelty Co, Los Angeles).