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film-classics · 3 days

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Bette Davis - The First Lady of the American Screen

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (born in Lowell, Massachusetts on April 5, 1908) was an American actress who is one of the most prominent of the 20th century, making her "The First Lady of the American Screen."

Coming from an English family, Davis got a part as a chorus girl and made her Broadway debut in 1929 after graduating from Cushing Academy. One year later, moved to Hollywood to test for Universal. She got a contract, but her first films were unsuccessful.

She joined Warner Bros. in 1932 and had her breakthrough in Of Human Bondage (1934). Even after losing a legal case to cancel her contract, she became a celebrated leading lady. A period of decline in the 1940s was redeemed with her role in All About Eve (1950), often cited as her best. Her final years were marred by ill health, but she continued acting until shortly before her death from breast cancer in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France at 81.

Legacy:

She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice: Dangerous (1936) and Jezebel (1939)

Was the 1st person to have 10 Oscar nominations for acting and set a record for the most consecutive with five

Nominated for three Golden Globe Best Actress: 1951, 1962, and 1963, and the Primetime Emmy Award in 1979 and nominated in 1980 and 1983

Nominated for the 1959 BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress

Won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 1937 Venice Film Festival

Won the National Board of Review Best Acting twice in 1939 and 1942

Won the Photoplay Awards - Best Performances of the Month in Jul 1939 and Dec 1950 and the 1963 Most Popular Female Star

Listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America’s top-10 box office draws in 1939 to 1941 and 1944

Co-founded the Hollywood Canteen in 1941

Elected as 1st female president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1941

Won Best Actress for at the 1945 Picturegoer Awards

Awarded a Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1946 and a Distinguished Civilian Service Medal by the Defense Department in 1983

Won the Golden Apple Award for Most Cooperative Actress in 1941 and 1963 and Life Achievement Award in 1983

Won Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival, New York Film Critics Circle, and Nastro d'Argento for All About Eve (1951)

Honored with a block in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 1950

Won the Golden Laurel for Top Female Dramatic Performance for Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

Received the Craft of Cinema Award at the 1969 San Francisco International Film Festival and a special 20th Anniversary Award for All About Eve at the 1973 Sarah Siddons Awards

Gifted personal memorabilia to form the Bette Davis Collection at the Boston University since 1968

Co-wrote 2 autobiographies: The Lonely Life (1962) and This 'n That (1987)

Appeared in John Springer's "Legendary Ladies" series at The Town Hall in 1973

Presented the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 1974 Golden Globe Awards

Won the 1976 Saturn Award Best Supporting Actress

Is the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1977

Received the 1980 Outstanding Mother of the Year Award from Woman's Day, the 1982 Award of Excellence from the Film Advisory Board, the Golden Reel Award from the National Film Society Artistry in Cinema, the Rudolph Valentino Award for Actress of the Year in 1982, the 1983 Charles Chaplin Award by UCLA Film and Television Archive, and the 1983 Women in Film Crystal Award

Received Life Achievement Awards from American Theater Arts in 1982, Boston Theater District in 1983, Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1986, and American Cinema Awards in 1989

Featured in songs, including Kim Carnes' Grammy-winning "Bette Davis Eyes" (1981)

Won the Golden Nymph at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival for A Piano for Mrs. Cimino (1982)

Awarded an Honorary César, appointed commander of Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1986, and granted a Fellowship by the British Film Institute and a Legion of Honour at Deauville Film Festival in 1987

Was the recipient of the 1987 Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award

Granted the 1988 Merit of Achievement by the Campione d'Italia and the 1989 Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival

Has had a memorial plaque in her birth home in Lowell since 1988

Honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 1989

Featured in the 1989 book Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud, the basis for the 2017 show Feud: Bette and Joan

Ranked #38 in Empire’s Top 100 Movie Stars in 1997

Has the Bette Davis Foundation established in her honor in 1997 to award scholarships at Boston University

Listed 10th in Entertainment Weekly’s 100 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time in 1998

Named the 5th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema in 1999 by the American Film Institute

Inducted in the Online Film and Television Association Hall of Fame in 1999

Ranked #2 in Premiere's 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time in 2005 and #5 in 100 Greatest Performances of All Time in 2006 for All About Eve (1950)

Honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month for April 2008 and November 2019

Honored by US Postal Service with a postage stamp in 2008

Has 2 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6225 Hollywood Blvd for motion picture and 6233 Hollywood Blvd for TV

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daimonclub · 6 months

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Celebrities and gossip

Celebrities and gossip Celebrities and gossip, top news and gossip From 24-7 Press Release Newswire and youtube video collections. The lowest form of popular culture - lack of information, misinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives - has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage. Carl Bernstein I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous. Walt Disney Not all celebrities are dunces. Carroll O’Connor I hate celebrities. I really hate them. Billie Joe Armstrong I can’t stand the gossip of celebrities’ lives, all the time! Every minute! William Shatner I don’t like celebrities; I don’t hang out with them; I don’t relate to that life. Lady Gaga Look at the way celebrities and politicians are using Facebook already. When Ashton Kutcher posts a video, he gets hundreds of pieces of feedback. Maybe he doesn’t have time to read them all or respond to them all, but he’s getting good feedback and getting a good sense of how people are thinking about that and maybe can respond to some of it. Mark Zuckerberg Adriana Lima Victoria's Secret Runway Walk Compilation 2003-2016 Gossip About Vips and Celebrities. The psychological aspect. By nature, humans are chatterers, says psychologist Robin Dunbar. He suggests that gossip is the human version of social grooming-a behavior common among other social primates in which one ape or monkey strokes the fur and picks fleas and ticks from the coat of another ape or monkey to strengthen group ties. Like social grooming, which helps other primates form alliances based on codependence, gossip helps humans develop trusting relationships and foster social bonds. Without that instinct to share the latest on a friend, peer or family member, there would be no sophisticated society, Dunbar claims, suggesting that societies depend on the individual’s ability to rely on others and understand something of the workings of another’s mind. About 65 percent of people’s discussions involve gossip - often to entertain or help strengthen group ties. One might think celebrity worship is a modern phenomenon, but from the gods on Olympus in ancient Greece to the bobby-soxers swooning over Frank Sinatra in the late 1930s and ’40s to Brad and Angelina today, adulation of the stars is an age-old pursuit, psychologists say. The public’s fascination with celebrities “may seem new because we are such a media-immersed society, but it’s really not,” said Stuart Fischoff, senior editor at the Journal of Media Psychology and emeritus professor of media psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. When the composers Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt performed in the 19th century, women threw their underwear at them. And 80 years after the death of silent-film star Rudolph Valentino, fans continue to visit his grave, Fischoff noted. Celebrities tap into the public’s primal fantasies and basic emotions, lifting people from their everyday lives and making them believe anything is possible, said Dr. John Lucas, a clinical assistant professor of psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College and an assistant attending psychiatrist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Humans at the core are social beings, and research has shown that the less connected people feel, the more they turn to celebrities, said Adam Galinsky, an expert in ethics and social psychology and a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. “It’s a very adaptive and functional behavior.” Lucas added, however, that while worshipping the rich and famous is harmless in itself, it could be perceived as symptomatic of a rootless culture in which many people feel a sense of isolation. “What we know of celebrities through People magazine and other media sources fills a gaping and painful void in our lives,” Lucas said. The dwindling influence of religion adds to that sense of yearning in people, he added, making the stars’ exploits and eccentricities, their loves and losses, more than a form of entertainment. “Religion is faltering, and in the process people are grappling with infantile wishes, with magical thinking,” he said. Social instinct, suggests research by Frank McAndrew, PhD, an applied social psychology professor at Knox College. Our interest in celebrity gossip-as well as dirt on our family, friends and acquaintances-may be a byproduct of our evolutionary past, McAndrew says. Natural selection, he theorizes, pressured people to learn as much as possible about the people in their social network-be they an authority figure, potential romantic partner, teacher, political ally or enemy. Knowing about other group members helped people eschew risky alliances, by informing them, for instance, which group member might double-cross them. “If you weren’t curious about others, you’d pay the consequences,” McAndrew says. In the process, gossiping also helped facilitate bonds by showing others we trust them enough to share information. Throughout most of human history, McAndrew explains, humans not only had to cooperate with a social network of about 200 people for food and protection, they also had to compete with those same in-group members for the most desirable mates. His research about the appeal of gossip is part of a growing body of literature indicating that we’re drawn to gossip because it keeps us informed about the lives of the people in our social circle. That social circle is now much bigger, and so less tied to our survival, but the instinct to gossip is just as strong. Because we see and hear celebrities’ images and voices on television, radio and magazines, we gossip about them as if they are members of our social network, McAndrew says. “Gossip is like chocolate,” says psychologist Charlotte DeBacker, PhD, a University of Santa Barbara postdoctoral fellow and author of the forthcoming Dutch-language book, “Gossip: Why Gossip Can Be Healthy” (MOM/Unieboek, 2006). Humans are drawn to fatty, sweet foods like chocolate because such high-calorie foods were once our lifeblood in lean times. As a result, people crave those foods-even when they are not in dire need of calories. Likewise, the pleasure that people derive from gossip can create a tendency to “dish dirt” even when the subject matter doesn’t affect our lives, such as with celebrity gossip, or when divulging information could be more risky, such as at work, says DeBacker. In a follow-up study published in the same article, Dunbar and his colleagues examined the topics within that social banter by grouping the discussions into four categories: whether people were keeping track of other individuals in their social network; bragging about themselves as a romantic partner, friend or ally; seeking advice; or condemning slackers or free loaders. He found that the first two topics dominated conversations, suggesting that the exchange of social information may be one of the primary functions of language. As such, Dunbar agrees with McAndrew and DeBacker’s suggestions that the pleasure we derive from gossip is a side effect of an evolutionary pull to gain knowledge about one’s group. “Language evolved for social purposes, not spreading technical information like whether it will rain or how to get from New York City to Washington, D.C.,” he says. “Knowledge of the social world has a much deeper purpose... It’s not just the fact that I saw Jimmy kiss Penelope, but how that incident relates to me and the group.” Top 10 Most Important People Around The World Top 10 Richest People In The World Top 13 Richest Celebs Under 25 in the World Top 10 Most Famous Female Models in the World Top 10 Most Popular Male Singers 2017 Top 10 Most Iconic Female Singers of All Time Top 10 Richest Actors in the World 2016 Top 10 Most Successful Youtubers Top 10 Famous Speeches People http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/peopleNews Celebrities http://rss.24-7pressrelease.com/rss/ae_celebrities.xml Read the full article

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sorenkingsley · 4 years

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Rudolph Valentino in A Society Sensation (1918)

#a society sensation #rudolph valentino #oldhollywoodedit #classicfilmsource #classicfilmblr #my gifs #*silent

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nitrateglow · 6 years

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I never knew Zasu Pitts and Rudolph Valentino were in the same movie ever but here we are...

A Society Sensation was originally released in 1918 as a full-length feature, but when Valentino became a superstar in the early 1920s, the film was chopped down to emphasize his supporting role at the cost of the rest of the story, leaving the movie at a scant 24 minutes. Unfortunately, this is all that survives of the film, as the original has been lost.

It’s a cute 24 minutes, for what it’s worth.

#silent movies #a society sensation #rudolph valentino #carmel myers #zasu pitts

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coffeeandcinema · 2 years

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The Los Angeles Athletic Club was a centre where the élite of local society and business gathered at the cocktail hour. It was like a foreign settlement.

A young man, a bit player, used to sit around the lounge, a lonely fellow who had come to Hollywood to try his luck but was not doing very well, named Valentino. He was introduced to me by another bit player, Jack Gilbert. I did not see Valentino again for a year or so; in the interim he jumped to stardom. When we met he was diffident, until I said: ‘Since I last saw you you have joined the immortals.’ Then he laughed and dropped his defences and became quite friendly.

Valentino had an air of sadness. He wore his success gracefully, appearing almost subdued by it. He was intelligent, quiet and without vanity, and had great allure for women, but had little success with them, and those he married treated him rather shabbily. Soon after one marriage, his wife started an affair with one of the men in the developing laboratory, with whom she would disappear into the dark-room. No man had greater attraction for women than Valentino; no man was more deceived by them.

- Charlie Chaplin on Rudolph Valentino in My Autobiography (1964).

#charlie chaplin #rudolph valentino #old hollywood

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busterkeatonsociety · 2 years

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#TalkieTuesday Buster Keaton talks about the longevity of action comedy in a 1960 interview with Art Finley.

#talkie tuesday #buster keaton #interview #silent era #silent movies #vintage hollywood #1960s #1920s #ibks #the international Buster Keaton society #Buster Keaton society #the damfinos #damfino #damfamily #Roscoe arbuckle #Rudolph valentino #gloria swanson

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handeaux · 2 years

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Whither The Ubiquitous Cuspidors Of Cincinnati’s Yesteryear?

The very word – cuspidor – conjures a long-lost era of handlebar moustaches, barbershop quartets and high starched collars, and yet we might be surprised at how long cuspidors lingered in common and very public use.

For a long time, Cincinnati was a nicotine powerhouse, located at the geographic center of thousands of farms planted with fine tobacco. In 1902 alone, Cincinnati produced 1,695,000 pounds of chewing tobacco and 271,003,000 cigars. Cigarettes were considered low-class and only caught on later.

Most men who indulged (and most men did indulge) opted for cigars or chaw or both. Consequently, any space in which men congregated was decorated with abundant cuspidors or, less daintily, “spittoons.” In 1913, solid brass cuspidors sold for anywhere from 59 cents to 79 cents, depending on size.

You would find such receptacles, of course, in saloons and billiard parlors, but also in every government building, business office, waiting room, hotel, even society’s finest homes. A book of manners, published in Cincinnati in 1855, notes that there were few limits imposed upon tobacco chewing:

“It is presumed that no person aspiring to be thought a gentleman will soil the carpets, or make a spittoon a necessary part of church furniture.”

Apparently, only churches and schools lacked spitting receptacles. The dearth in schools was recounted by William C. Smith in his delightful 1959 book, “Queen City Yesterdays”:

“Our teacher of arithmetic, ‘Daddy Orr,’ had the chewing habit himself and at times indulged during class. He could hold the juice for some time, but at the end of the limit of his retentive power he would then casually walk to the door, stick his head out into the hall and shoot the contents down the stairs. This habit resulted in a happy accident that made student life worth living for a considerable period. On that occasion Daddy fired a stream of the golden fluid down the stairs just as the Principal rounded the corner on the landing halfway below. How much the Principal actually received in the way of decoration we pupils never knew but that we enjoyed the episode is an understatement. As we were all fond of ‘Daddy Orr’ and had no time for the Principal, we felt that Providence was on the job and that justice had been done.”

Mister Smith, recalling his childhood in the 1880s, has such comprehensive memories of the devil’s weed that it is obvious he was an early adopter:

“Chewing tobacco came packed in wooden containers, each holding a dozen or more one-pound plugs. A slicing machine for cutting pound plugs into five and ten cent cuts was in evidence on the counter. Star, Horseshoe, Gravely, and Splendid were popular brands of chewing tobacco; scrap, the left-over cuttings in the manufacture of cigars, was favored by those addicts of the weed who preferred the straight article without sweetening or flavor; this was sold in plain paper bags at five cents. Fine cut, another type of chewing tobacco, was shredded, sweetened, and flavored and was packaged in a large wooden bucket and sold by the ounce. Twist, just plain tobacco in a twisted roll, was used for both chewing and smoking.”

Prior to 1900, cigarettes were more often herbal and medicinal than filled with tobacco. They were associated with women and ne’er-do-wells. Real men smoked cigars and chewed tobacco. The tide began to turn in the 1920s as men and women switched to cigarettes as a cleaner, less obnoxiously smelly alternative to cigars. The gypsy bandits and Arab sheiks portrayed on the silver screen by heartthrob Rudolph Valentino did not chew plug tobacco, but smoked cigarettes, exhaling pheromones with every puff. Almost overnight, cigarettes became sexy and chewing tobacco was judged gross and old-fashioned.

The Cincinnati Post’s legendary columnist, Alfred Segal, marked the decline on 18 October 1929:

“There are people who think there will always be a cuspidor handy. Yes. Wise guys. It is this scoffing attitude that is responsible for the disappearance of the brontosaurus.”

Segal was prescient but, although tastes changed, traditions lingered. By 1936, as City Hall remodeled Council Chambers, there was no argument that spittoons remained a necessary fixture. The only debate surrounded whether to spend $8 each on new brass spittoons or to keep the antiquated ceramic cuspidors located at each councilmember’s chair.

Even though a delegation from the Cincinnati Woman’s Club implored the Cincinnati Federal Building to remove all cuspidors in 1907 to comply with a city ordinance against public expectoration, the brass receptacles were still in place 40 years later. On 10 July 1948, longtime Enquirer columnist Ollie James reported that 120 of 220 Federal Building spittoons had been removed on orders from Washington.

“Somewhere, in some dark and deserted storeroom of the Federal Building, are 120 lonely, retired cuspidors. No longer are cigar butts bonging merrily on their brassy brows; no longer are tobacco cuds nestling cozily in their brazen bosoms; no longer are their innards filled with cool, cool water.”

Of course this meant that 100 spittoons were still scattered around Cincinnati’s Federal Building in 1948, presumably receiving regular expectorations.

A year later, another Enquirer scribe, Mildred Miller, described [7 June 1949] the fruitless quest of one Bill Barlow, “well known publicity man,” to purchase a brass cuspidor with which to commemorate the golden wedding anniversary of his pal, Clifford White. According to Barlow, White was fond of a good “chaw” and a brass spittoon resembled gold enough to mark this auspicious wedding anniversary. (There is no mention of Mrs. White’s opinions on Mr. White’s peccadillos.) In any event, Mildred reports, there was not a single new brass spittoon to be had in all of Cincinnati in 1949. After visiting eight commercial establishments, Mr. Barlow’s quest was unfulfilled.

“Finally someone suggested he go to a second-hand shop on Pearl Street. He went there, only to find a battered-up brass cuspidor which he wouldn’t consider.”

Ollie James returned to the topic on 27 March 1951, noting that chewing tobacco sales were only one-third of the volume 25 years previously. Even so, Cincinnati Post business reporter Dick Gordon noted [26 July 1951] that 20 percent of American offices still kept cuspidors on conspicuous display.

It wasn’t until the Sixties that spittoons appeared positively passé. Perhaps the ultimate example was an advertisement on 10 December 1960 for the Gentry Shops at Swifton Center. For just $4.95, the shop offered a brass cuspidor – filled with sand for use as an ash tray! And yet, as late as 1966, there were still six functioning spittoons at the U.S. Capitol.

Of course, what goes around almost always comes around again. The Cincinnati Enquirer advertised [24 February 1970] a “Magnificent Gleaming Authentic Brass Cuspidor, The Ultimate In Collector’s Masterpieces” for just $9.95.

“Use it as the perfect planter or as the ideal accent piece for your den or fireplace . . . it will surely be the focal point wherever you display it. Makes a wonderful gift. A genuine piece of Americana that will definitely become an heirloom in your family.”

#cincinnati tobacco #cincinnati spittoons #cincinnati cuspidors

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astrognossienne · 3 years

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scandalous beauty - dolores del río - an analysis

“I love my native Mexico but I love Hollywood, too. It has brought me much happiness and yet, while here I have been miserably unhappy also. But through it all I have found myself, my work and my true destiny.” - Dolores del Río

Like Lupe Vélez, Dolores del Río was a pioneering Latina actress, however del Río’s reach was longer. Far from being stigmatized as a woman of colour, she was acknowledged as the epitome of beauty in the Hollywood of the 1920s and early 1930s. While she insisted upon her ethnicity, she was nevertheless coded white by the film industry and its fans, and she appeared for more than a decade as a romantic lead opposite white actors. Returning to Mexico in the early 1940s, she brought enthusiasm and prestige to the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, becoming one of the great divas of Mexican film. With struggle and perseverance, she overcame the influence of men in both countries who hoped to dominate her, ultimately controlling her own life professionally and personally. Her sophistication, style and artistry bewitched everyone from Stella Adler to John Ford, Federico Fellini, and her great friends Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, who proclaimed to be “totally in love with her, just like forty million Mexicans and one hundred and twenty million Americans who couldn’t be wrong.” She was America’s first Latina superstar, and by the early 1930s, she was one of Hollywood's ten top moneymakers. Hers was a charmed life, but not even she was without problems. A child of privilege in her native Mexico, her family’s status was destroyed in the Mexican Revolution, and her desire to restore her comfortable lifestyle inspired del Río to follow a career as an actress. Discovered and promoted by American director Edwin Carewe, her obsessive protector and Svengali, as the “female Rudolph Valentino,” del Río’s aristocratic, Spanish-European background was constantly pushed to counteract Hollywood’s racism against Mexicans; indeed she was generally thought to be one of the most beautiful actresses of her era, and was the first Latin American movie star to have international appeal. She worked for over five decades and paved the way for Latin American stars in American cinema.

Dolores del Río, according to astrotheme, was a Leo sun and Aries moon. She was born María de los Dolores Asúnsolo López-Negrete in the Mexican town of Durango; she was an only child born to parents who belonged to the wealthy Mexican aristocracy. She was the second cousin of actor Ramón Novarro and a cousin to actress Andrea Palma. They lived the high life in the company of intellectuals and artists. Dolores attended a prestigious school but soon their world was turned upside down, threatened by an insurrection led by Pancho Villa in the region. Del Río and her mother escaped Mexico City disguised as peasants, while her father crossed the border to the United States. When the family eventually reunited in 1912, they did so under the protection of Francisco I. Madero. In 1920 she married the 18-year older attorney Jaime Martinez del Río and became a socialite. Her career got off to a good start when in 1925 when the lauded American director Edwin Carewe was invited to her home and saw her perform and dance for her family and friends. He persuaded del Río and her husband to moved to the United Sates and go to Hollywood to be in his films. While in Hollywood, del Río played a variety of leading roles, from European aristocrat to "native" girl to European peasant.

Within a few years after her arrival, she was a major hit and her appeal was astonishingly broad. She quickly came to command a substantial salary and to exercise control over her choice of films, scripts, and camera angles. Despite the fact that she did not speak English when she first began and had to have the director 's instructions delivered through interpreters, she made the transition to sound films gracefully. Her accent was deemed slight, attractive, and not specific to a particular country. As socially attractive as she was, physically and personality-wise, the truth is that a major part of del Río’s seamless transition into Hollywood is down to racism and white supremacy. While her contemporary (and nemesis) Lupe Vélez was viewed as the "bad Mexican wildcat" (to be fair, her temperament didn’t help this stereotype), Dolores was viewed as the "good Spanish lady." The contrast between the two stars and their degrees of acceptance reflected society’s stereotypical dichotomy between "good" Spanish and "bad" Mexican images– which has its roots in U.S. history. While most Mexicans were perceived as racially inferior, the elite Hispanic Californianas were deemed European and superior while the mass of Mexican women were viewed as Indian and inferior. Californiana women who possessed land and intermarried with Anglo men were depicted positively; they were represented as aristocratic and virtuous and they epitomized "good" women; but this was at the price of denying their racial identity, and being treated as racially superior to Californiano males and the rest of their people. So as such, she soon divorced her Mexican husband Jaime in 1928 and two years later married MGM art director Cedric Gibbons (who happened to be Gary Cooper’s wife’s uncle).

Soon after her marriage, she was romantically linked with actor Errol Flynn, filmmaker John Farrow, writer Erich Maria Remarque, film producer Archibaldo Burns, and actor Tito Junco. However, it was her affair with Orson Welles, who considered her the love of his life, that was arguably her most high profile relationship. She and Welles met at a party hosted by director Darryl Zanuck. The couple felt a mutual attraction and began a discreet affair, which upon eventual discovery caused the divorce between Dolores and Gibbons. Their relationship lasted for 4 years; she ended it when she got word of Welles cheating on her. She decided to end her relationship with Welles through a telegram that he never answered. According to his daughter, Rebecca, until the end of his life, Welles felt for del Río a kind of obsession. Weeks later, her father died in Mexico. With these personal and professional downturns, Dolores del Río returned to Mexico in the 1940s and became a significant part of the Mexican film industry’s Golden Era. She was the muse of director Emilio Fernández and starred most notably in Las Abandonadas (1944) and La Malquerida (1949). On a national and even international level though, Dolores del Río will perhaps always be best remembered for her role in the 1946 classic María Candelaría, which is said to be the film of which she was most proud. It also marked the first tentative steps of the Mexican film industry into the world of serious cinema and was the first Latin American film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946, where it won the Grand Prix (now known as the Palme d’Or) for Best Picture. After her triumph in her native homeland, she returned to Hollywood and played opposite Henry Fonda in The Fugitive (1947). She continued to work steadily, starring in various TV shows and films until retiring in 1978. On April 11, 1983, del Río died from liver failure at the age of 78 in Newport Beach, California.

Next week, I’ll focus on her one-time lover, an iconoclastic disruptor who took on the conventions of Hollywood and won: the amazing Taurus Orson Welles.

Stats

birthdate: August 3, 1904

major planets:

Sun: Leo

Moon: Aries

Rising: Leo

Mercury: Virgo

Venus: Leo

Mars: Cancer

Midheaven: Taurus

Jupiter: Aries

Saturn: Aquarius

Uranus: Sagittarius

Neptune: Cancer

Pluto: Gemini

Overall personality snapshot: She had a large, warm-hearted, extroverted personality that was always eager to embrace life, love and success – in big doses. There was something about her that assumed the divine right to live life to the full, and her intensity and impatience, along with her personal ambitions, pulled her ever onwards into new projects, fresh relationships and greater challenges. She was something of a gambler and had a daring and dramatic spirit which propelled her forward to make her mark, a sense of personal destiny which can only be exciting and noble. And she was prepared to fight for that glorious destiny if she had to, although she would rather simply steal the show and convince everyone with her intelligence, originality, courage and fabulous style. One of her most beguiling qualities is that she was totally lacking in guile and pretense. Although her own personal destiny was what interested her, paradoxically she at first looked for people she could admire and make into personal heroes. Strongly influenced by a favourite teacher, friend, poet, sports champion or movie star, she could then emulate them and learn through experience how to be great.

She loved the process of creating, as well as the applause that came at the end. Indeed, she relied on those adoring strokes and affirmative responses more than she liked to admit. Life without people would be colourless and boring for her. Social interaction was her life-blood – she could be the life of the party, a real ham and an eccentric, ready to take up the most outrageous dare. But when her extrovert escapades dry up, so did she. She may have, in fact, driven herself to exhaustion and then collapse like a child, home from an all-night rave-up. Yet despite her headlong rush into the experience of life, she was not necessarily irresponsible. Daring and highly idealistic dreams worked away inside her and made her want to improve things, to show people the way, and she may have simply taken charge – for a while. Intensely self-motivated, she did not respond well to orders from others, even though she could be quite bossy herself. There is a touch of the preacher inside her, and she approached her work with great enthusiasm and commitment. She needed space to do her own thing, to learn from her own mistakes, and to learn how to impose her own brand of self-discipline. Her innate self-dramatizing tendencies made her a natural for the theater, business, lecturing, the media – areas that involved group interaction and provided scope for her original and iconoclastic ideas.

She had great presence with a strong-featured face and a sunny glow of inner self-confidence and displayed a regal quality in her posture and carriage; was definitely well-built. She sought perfection in whatever she did and could be very critical of herself and her own efforts. In this way, she often became overly critical and pedantic, especially under stress. She was basically an honest person, and it disturbed her greatly when she had to deal with people who were not. Anyone who violated her sense of trust had a very hard time getting it back. It was very important for her to know that she had the security of a guaranteed paycheck coming in regularly. She had an artistic side to her that obviously influenced her choice of career as an actor. Once she had decided upon her career, she was able to (and most certainly did) pursue it with great determination. She had boundless enthusiasm and big ideas coupled with high expectations of succeeding. She was also self-sufficient and broad-minded. Her genuine pioneering spirit, positive outlook and large-scale personal ambitions led her right to the top. She needed to learn to think before you take on a challenge, and all risks should have been carefully considered. She needed to learn to relax and slow down. She was anxious to prove herself both to others and to herself. If anyone said that she couldn’t do something, she defied them to try and stop her. As long as she felt that she was the one in control, she had a high degree of optimism and was fun-loving, loving to play at life.

She had an original mind and used every skill she possessed to gain control of her affairs. She found it hard to let go of the past, and it would have been good if she did so that she could grow. She was willing to tolerate austerity for as long as it was justified. She respected institutions for as long as they served her purpose. She had the ability to judge what was viable or important. She belonged to a generation with fiery enthusiasm for new and innovative ideas and concepts. Rejecting the past and its mistakes, she sought new ideals and people to believe in. As a member of this generation, she felt restless and adventurous, and was attracted towards foreign people, places and cultures. She was part of an emotionally sensitive generation that was extremely conscious of the domestic environment and the atmosphere surrounding their home place and home country. In fact, she could be quite nostalgic about her homeland, religion and traditions, often seeing them in a romantic light. She felt a degree of escapism from everyday reality, and was very sensitive to the moods of those around him. Dolores embodied all of these Cancer Neptunian ideals, when she returned to her native Mexico in 1943, a country of which she was very proud, her decision to return to her roots changed her career. As a Gemini Plutonian, she was mentally restless and willing to examine and change old doctrines, ideas and ways of thinking. As a member of this generation, she showed an enormous amount of mental vitality, originality and perception. Traditional customs and taboos were examined and rejected for newer and more original ways of doing things. As opportunities with education expanded, she questioned more and learned more.

Love/sex life: She had a heroic conception of herself as a lover. She saw herself as strong and in control, the protector of the weak and the saviour of the desperate. Unfortunately, the realities of her love life didn’t always support this notion. Often it was her tender feelings that required protection and her desperate plunges in and out of love that called for a saviour. In order to justify this discrepancy, she often had to be less than honest, both with her lover and herself. The person most likely to win her heart would have been that individual who made it appear as if she was the champion when, in fact, she was the one crying for help. Her tendency toward self-deception often extended to a failure to admit to her very natural emotionalism and sexual passivity. Unfortunately, there always came a day of reckoning when she had to “own” her emotional susceptibility and capitulate to her sloppy feelings of dependency and her deep-seated need for affection. The good news was that surrendering everything for love wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought it was. She may have lost her dignity but what she got in return made it all worth while.

minor asteroids and points:

North Node: Virgo

Lilith: Pisces

Vertex: Sagittarius

Fortune: Taurus

East Point: Leo

These points in her chart, however minor, packed a major punch in her sex appeal as well. Her North Node in Virgo dictated that her tendency to dream and be disorganized needed to be tempered by developing more practical and down-to-earth attitudes. Her Lilith in Pisces meant that she was a woman who was a natural born mystic and cultivated her own myth. Her Part of Fortune in Taurus and Part of Spirit in Scorpio dictated that her destiny lay in attaining personal freedom through seeking material security and comfort. Happiness and good fortune came through tangible and practical results that had a solid foundation. Her soul’s purpose lay in delving fearlessly into the unknown. She felt spiritual connections and saw the spark of the divine when she could strip away the outer layers of experiences and get to the core of a situation. East Point in Leo dictated that she was more likely to identify with the need for pleasure (including the potential of liking herself) and comfort. Vertex in Sagittarius, 4th house reveals that she dreamt of the pinnacle of adventure when it came to mating. Her psyche yearned to be carried away to the ends of the earth or to be exposed to every manner of religious and/or philosophical theory known to man and then some. Her yearning was strong and really deep when it came to rarefied experiences of any sort. Encountering and wanting to join with her demanded that she always had an itinerary that will provide her with the maps to explore the roads that they have not yet traveled, to say nothing of the different worlds they have dreamed of but not yet experienced. She had a childlike orientation, in all of its manifestations, toward relationships on an internal level. That implicit dependency and impressionable nature that was instilled in her childhood persisted far into maturity. The concomitant explosions and occasional tantrums when these constructs are violated also accompany this position. She had a need for emotional security and comfort in a committed relationship, no matter how many years it has endured. She often had deep fears, typical of children, of abandonment, as well as a need for protection and universal acceptance, no matter how she acted, which she needed her partner to respect and nurture, rather than rebuke, especially in adulthood.

elemental dominance:

fire

earth

She was dynamic and passionate, with strong leadership ability. She generated enormous warmth and vibrancy. She was exciting to be around, because she was genuinely enthusiastic and usually friendly. However, she could either be harnessed into helpful energy or flame up and cause destruction. Ultimately, she chose the latter. Confident and opinionated, she was fond of declarative statements such as “I will do this” or “It’s this way.” When out of control—usually because she was bored, or hadn’t been acknowledged—she was be bossy, demanding, and even tyrannical. But at her best, her confidence and vision inspired others to conquer new territory in the world, in society, and in themselves. She was a practical, reliable man and could provide structure and protection. She was oriented toward practical experience and thought in terms of doing rather than thinking, feeling, or imagining. Could be materialistic, unimaginative, and resistant to change. But at her best, she provided the practical resources, analysis, and leadership to make dreams come true.

modality dominance:

fixed

She liked the challenge of managing existing routines with ever more efficiency, rather than starting new enterprises or finding new ways of doing things. She likely had trouble delegating duties and had a very hard time seeing other points of view; she tried to implement the human need to create stability and order in the wake of change.

house dominants:

12th

9th

1st

She had great interest in the unconscious, and indulged in a lot of hidden and secret affairs. Her life was defined by seclusion and escapism. She had a certain mysticism and hidden sensitivity, as well as an intense need for privacy. Traveling, whether physically across the globe, on a mental plane or expanding through study was a major theme in her life. She was not only concerned with learning facts, but also wanted to understand the connections formed between them and the philosophies and concepts they stood for. Her conscience, as well as foreign travel, people and places was also of paramount importance in her life. Her personality, disposition and temperament was highlighted in her life. The manner in which she expressed herself and the way she approached other people is also highlighted. The way she approached new situations and circumstances contributed to show how she set about her life’s goals. Early childhood experiences also factored in her life as well.

planet dominants:

Mercury

Sun

Venus

She was intelligent, mentally quick, and had excellent verbal acuity. She dealt in terms of logic and reasoning. It is likely that she was left-brained. She was restless, craved movement, newness, and the bright hope of undiscovered terrains. She had vitality and creativity, as well as a strong ego and was authoritarian and powerful. She likely had strong leadership qualities, she definitely knew who she was, and she had tremendous will. She met challenges and believed in expanding her life. She was romantic, attractive and valued beauty, had an artistic instinct, and was sociable. She had an easy ability to create close personal relationships, for better or worse, and to form business partnerships.

sign dominants:

Leo

Aries

Virgo

She loved being the center of attention and often surrounded herself with admirers. She had an innate dramatic sense, and life was definitely her stage. Her flamboyance and personal magnetism extended to every facet of her life. She wanted to succeed and make an impact in every situation. As a Leo dominant, she was, at her best, optimistic, honorable, loyal, and ambitious. She was a physically oriented individual who took pride in her body. She was bold, courageous, and resourceful. She always seemed to know what she believed, what she wanted from life, and where she was going. She could be dynamic and aggressive (sometimes, to a fault) in pursuing her goals—whatever they might be. Could be argumentative, lacked tact, and had a bad temper. On the other hand, her anger rarely lasted long, and she could be warm and loving with those she cared about. She was a discriminating, attractive, thorough, scientific, hygienic, humane, scientific woman and had the highest standards. Her attention to detail was second to none and she had a deeply penetrative and investigative mind.