Movie History

Abusive journalists not only make our blood boil, but they also make us write run-on sentences. The article says nothing about the fact that her love of acting was so great that she braved the U-Boat infested waters of the Atlantic Ocean in 1942 in order to get to Hollywood. However, you will learn about her salad years as a shop girl at the Bullocks Wilshire department store.

This article tells the tale of her early days in 1940s Los Angeles and her work as a photographer's model, which turned a few of the crowned heads of Hollywood:

"A color photograph of her was seen by David Selznick, who forthwith signed her. Selznick gave her drama and diction classes for a year without casting her in a picture, and when option time came up, her contract was dropped. That, naturally, was a great disappointment..."

••Watch A Martha Vickers Slide Show ••

"Beverly Hills became famous in 1926 when, in one of the smartest publicity stunts of the century, the movie star Will Rogers was elected honorary mayor. Installed in drizzling rain, Rogers declared that all the budding town needed for progress was a little scandal and a few murders... Today, it has an international reputation for exclusive smartness; its citizens are largely concerned with the production of motion pictures; possibly 200 film notables live in the town, and most of the movie stars who built within its confines came there because they were attracted by the notion of large estates within easy distance of the sea and the beaches."

"One of the most acute problems in Hollywood is Veronica Lake. Where, and at what precise moment her time-bomb mind will will explode with some deviation from what studio bosses consider normal is an ever-present question. Hence, the grapevine of the movie industry always hums with rumors that unless Miss Lake 'behaves', she will no longer be tolerated, but cast into oblivion."

Her response:

"Women are always trouble to unimaginative men..."

This five page interview tells the story of Holden's initial discovery in Hollywood, his devotion to both the Screen Actor's Guild and Paramount Pictures. His Hollywood peers held him in especially high-regard:

"In a poll of Hollywood reporters recently he was designated 'the best adjusted and happiest actor around'".

"Groucho's infatuation with the language has been the backbone of his entire life and has, undoubtedly, played the largest single part in shaping him into one of the greatest wits of our time. Groucho doesn't regard words the way the rest of us do. He looks at a word in the usual fashion. Then he looks at it upside down, backwards, from the middle out to the ends, and from the ends back to the middle...Groucho doesn't look for double meanings. He looks for quadruple meanings. And usually finds them."

Click here to read about the manner in which the Marx Brothers would test their jokes.