Carole Lombard (October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress. She is particularly noted for her comedic roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s. She is listed as one of the American Film Institute's greatest stars of all time and was the highest-paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930s, earning around US$500,000 per year[citation needed] (more than five times the salary of the US President). Lombard's career was cut short when she died at the age of 33 in a plane crash while returning from a World War II Bond tour.
Queen of the 1930s screwball comedies, she personified the anxiety of a nervous age. Graham Greene praised the "heartbreaking and nostalgic melodies" of her faster-than-thought delivery. "Platinum blonde, with a heart-shaped face, delicate, impish features and a figure made to be swathed in silver lamé, she wriggled expressively through such classics of hysteria as Twentieth Century and My Man Godfrey."
Plot
After her parents are financially ruined in a lawsuit over a shooting accident, Lucille 'Lucy' Ball pursues her dream of fame as actress. She succeeds in comical parts, often the girl who gets the cake in her face. Then she meets and soon marries the love of her life, Desiderio 'Desi' . Ricky, Latin band leader and aristocratic son of an exiled Cuban mayor. Desi proves a business genius, who gets a revolutionary method adopted to gain production control of the sitcom "I Love Lucy", a format devised for him and Lucy to star in. Despite offspring, their family life soon gets into stormy waters, mainly due to his infidelity, gambling and temper.
Keywords: abuse, character-name-in-title, dancing, face-slap, gambling, hugging, infidelity, jealousy, love, play-within-a-play
When the comedy stopped...real life began.
Desi Arnaz: I work hard, I play hard, I drink hard and I love hard.
[on Desi's infidelity]::Lucy: That's your excuse? Because your daddy did it long ago on some Spic island?
Plot
Coming to Hollywood as a celebrated boy genius featuring a spectacular career arc in New York including his "War of the Worlds" radio hoax, Orson Welles is stymied on the subject for his first film. After a dinner party at Hearst Castle, during which he has a verbal altercation with Hearst, Welles decides to do a movie about Hearst. It takes him some time to convince co-writer Herman Mankiewicz and the studio, but Welles eventually gets the script and the green light, keeping the subject very hush-hush with the press. When a rough cut is screened, Hearst gets wind of the movie's theme and begins a campaign to see that it is not only never publicly screened, but destroyed.
Keywords: 1940s, actress, anti-semitism, bankruptcy, based-on-documentary, based-on-true-story, censorship, director, film-director, film-industry
Welles's Mother: Orson, come into the light. Never stand in the shadows -- you were made for the light. Always remember that.
[last lines]::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: All stars burn out, Orson. It's the flame that counts.::Orson Welles: [toasts] To the flame.::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: To the flame.
William Randolph Hearst: There is nothing to understand. Only this: I am a man who could have been great, but was not.
[Addressing the RKO shareholders]::Orson Welles: Good afternoon. Today a man from Germany invaded Greece. He's already swallowed Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium. He's bombing London as I speak. Everywhere this man goes he crushes the life and the freedom of his subjects. He sews yellow stars on their lapels, he takes their voices. In this country, we still have our voices. We can argue with them, and we can sing, and we can be heard because we are, for the moment, free. No one can tell us what to say or how to say it, can they? Gentlemen, I am one voice; that is all. My picture is one voice, one view, one opinion, nothing more. Men are dying in Europe now, and Americans soon will be so that we can surmount the tyrants and the dictators. Will you send a message across America that one man can take away our voices? So, who is Mr. Hearst, and who is Mr. Welles? Well, Mr. Hearst built a palace of brick and mortar, and little wars and corpses piled high. Mr. Welles built a palace of illusion. It's a, what we call a matte painting, it's a camera trick, it's nothing. Nothing but a dream. Today you have the chance to let the dream triumph. Thank you.
Orson Welles: Everything I am, everything I could be is in that picture.
Orson Welles: I expected better of you, Mank.::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: Me too, but I got used to it.
Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: What about Marion?::Orson Welles: Another animal in his zoo.::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: That is love to him. "I love you, I built you a beautiful cage."
Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: Every man loves, Orson. Or has loved.
William Randolph Hearst: My battle with the world is almost over. Yours is just beginning.::Orson Welles: Kane would've taken the tickets.
[In the lobby, opening night]::Herman J. 'Mank' Mankiewicz: Rosebud's a sled! Rosebud's a sled.
Plot
Struggling actress Hedda Hopper can't get a break in Hollywood, even though an acquaintence of hers is the extremely powerful gossip monger Louella Parsons - maker and breaker of careers (and lives) through her daily syndicated newspaper column. The big movie moguls, fed up with Parson's power over their stars, decide to de-claw her by setting up gossip Hopper as a competitor in the rumour industry. What they couldn't forsee was that Hopper would become as big as Parsons -- and every bit as much of a pain. Based on the true life stories of two of the most powerful (and arguably dangerous) women of Hollywood's hay-day.
Keywords: 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, actress, based-on-novel, based-on-true-story, docudrama, female-protagonist, film-critic, film-industry
Louis B. Mayer: I haven't destroyed a monster, I've created two.
Louella Parsons: If the two of us ever got together; we could rock this town on it's heels!
Hedda Hopper: The only thing I'm wearing that belongs to me is my underwear.::Louella Parsons: It doesn't show.
Carole Lombard: Scarletts! They're all Scarletts! We're up to our butts in Scarletts!
It was the wildest, wackiest love affair Hollywood ever knew.
They had more than love...they had FUN!