In the early '40s, Laurence Olivier had everything going for him: he was widely regarded as one of the two best actors to ever grace the British stage, his film career had been set aflame by startling performances in Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, and his gorgeous wife, Vivien Leigh, had just pulled off Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. He was also at the apex of his career as a stone-cold fox. And as half of the “first couple” of Britain, he was the closest that a born-and-raised Brit would get to bona fide Hollywood stardom. He and Leigh lived in flagrant sin, still married to other people, [...]

Natalie Wood was a transitional star, her career straddling Hollywood's awkward shift from the classic studio system to the independent free-for-all that continues to characterize film production today. Her face also seems frozen in transition from girl to woman: Wood was a child star, Oscar nominee, teen bride, and has-been — all before the age of twenty. And her acting oscillated between the poignant and the hysterical, for which she was alternately lauded and lampooned. But she had a work ethic, and ultimately survived studio manipulation to become a legend in her own right, starring in one of the most successful and seminal musicals of the past fifty years.

So let’s set things straight: Paul Newman isn’t from Classic Hollywood. In fact, he’s not even scandalous — if anything, he managed to avoid scandal altogether, in a way that few stars have before or since. His star image was that of a genuinely talented actor, a kind man, a passionate philanthropist, and an absolutely devoted husband….

….who just happened to the most gorgeous thing on the planet. Sometimes I’ll say that a movie star is good looking, or sexy, or handsome, but I also realize that my opinion is subjective, and others might not find him to be so. But when it comes to Paul Newman, it is [...]

Imagine a man built like a tank: 6' 5" frame, barrel chest, square jaw.  This man speaks with a low voice, sports a full set of hair, and tantalizes his female fans with his persistent bachelorhood.

But this man is also skilled dancer, a masterful flirt, and the consummate gentleman. He plays sensitive characters who aren't cry-babies but who feel so many emotions, and his outfits are always coordinated, whether they're three-piece suits or a flannel work shirts and jeans.

This man was the perfect projection of what women of the 1950s and ‘60s thought they wanted when they fell asleep at night. And that projection — named “Rock Hudson” [...]

Ever since I was a girl, just looking at Katharine Hepburn has made me feel powerful. There’s the proud tilt of her chin, the direct line of her posture, the graceful sweep of her hair — the steely eyes, the delicately strong cheekbones, the beautifully set mouth. And when she opens that mouth, it only gets better, as her high, melodic voice runs circles around whomever or whatever stands in front of her. For millions, Hepburn was proof positive that Hollywood stardom wasn’t all peroxide blonde and vapid sighs. Along with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, Hepburn suggested that intelligence and verve were beautiful — and that people would [...]

Here is the simple truth about Cary Grant: he was the best and most important actor of the last hundred years. He didn’t reinvent acting like Brando, he didn’t fatten himself up like Robert De Niro or starve himself like Christian Bale. He wasn’t burly like Gable, and he didn’t smolder like Mitchum. Instead, he played slight variations on the same character for the majority of his career, he wore a suit better than anyone in Hollywood, and he made acting seem like living. Over the course of his long career, Grant fixed standards of what it meant to be “debonair” and “a man about town” — everything he did, [...]

What’s left to say about Marilyn Monroe? I mean seriously, what can I tell you? She was beautiful, she had a body, she dripped sex, plus all of the other clichés in the sexy-lady-describer book. I had all of this explained to me at some point in my teens, but it didn’t really sink in until the first time I saw her on the screen — at some point in my early 20s, in Some Like It Hot — and I finally understood what all the fuss was about.

After you see her onscreen, you think you understand, but even then, you don’t. Because today’s Monroe, the Monroe that [...]

Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle wasn’t Hollywood-hot. He didn’t have any high-profile romances, and the gossip mags never complimented him on his dashing evening wear. But he was one of the best physical comedians of all time, and from 1914 to 1920, he effectively ruled the movie business. He was Will Ferrell meets Chris Farley with a twist of Fire-Marshall-Bill-era Jim Carrey, and he was, and remains, a marvel to behold. Here was a man who, despite his mass, seemed to float across the screen, and whose comedy had deftness and grace — qualities Ferrell’s tighty-whitey romps, for all of their glory, distinctly lack.

But “Fatty” was just Arbuckle’s picture personality, [...]

Readers, Rita Hayworth had something. And by something, I mean everything. This little girl from Brooklyn, exploited at the hands of her domineering father, forced to change her name and her hairline to get rid of her pesky Latinness, had the sort of beauty and verve that unite to form charisma. She’s gorgeous, but so are many classic Hollywood stars. What sets her apart is the alacrity in her eyes, the persistent bounce in her step — when you see her onscreen, it seems like everyone else is just sleepwalking.

But Hayworth’s story is also a tragic one: in addition to undergoing a very public and very graphic (and [...]

Ava Gardner knew how to pose for the camera. She’d slit her eyes, throw her head at an angle, and the photographer would somehow catch something about her — not elegance or grace, exactly, but something that was strong, sexual, and almost animal, as if she were zeroing in on you, weighing your merits, and readying to pounce. And for most of the ‘40s and ‘50s, she was Hollywood’s most alluring femme fatale, an image solidified both on and off the screen.

Gardner was the youngest of eight children, raised in near-poverty in North Carolina, where she acquired a “Pure Tobacco Road South” accent and a predilection for drama. She [...]