- Title: Hollywood Glamor Portraits 145 Photos of Stars 1926-1949
- Editor: John Kobal
- Year Published: 1976 (Dover Publications, Inc., New York)
- Year Purchased: 1990’s
- Source: Unknown
- About: The front cover boasts the timeless beauty of Louise Brooks; the back cover features the lovely, glamorous Carole Lombard. Everything in-between is equally stunning: two decades of Hollywood’s greatest stars as shot by movieland’s best photographers are sumptuously laid out, one per page. It has certainly lived up to the publisher’s promise: A DOVER EDITION DESIGNED FOR YEARS OF USE!
- Motivation: I’m human-I enjoy looking at beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes whilst striking interesting poses. The work gracing the pages of modern-day ‘Vogue’ and ‘Harper’s BAZAAR’ usually bores me to tears. My solution is to step back in time! The re-touching done by photographers during Hollywood’s Golden Age, although ubiquitous, was much more subtle (if highly glossy and stylized) than the current mania for out-of-control Photoshopping that results in mangled limbs and plastic visages. Also, please see: John Gilbert! Ronald Colman! Buster Keaton! Frances Farmer! Myrna Loy! Rita Hayworth! Gloria Swanson! Clara Bow! Nancy freaking Carroll!
- Times Read: Multiple
- Random Excerpt/Page xi: “I was taking pictures at ten on my father’s ranch-from the saddle. In 1916, when I was sixteen, a company came to film ‘The Sunset Princess’ on the ranch and all I did was get in the cameraman’s hair from morning to night. The very next year, I was in Hollywood with Billy Beckay, learning.” -Bob Coburn (RKO; UA; COLUMBIA)
- Happiness Scale: 10+++
Publicity photo of Nancy Carroll from Stars of the Photoplay (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A Year in Books/Day 78: Hollywood Glamor Portraits
1
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 