Mowing the Lawn...

Because summer is not only about going to the beach...

Hollywood studios back in the day published innumerable "candid" photographs of stars at work, at play, at doing nothing in particular.  They were often portrayed as glamorous people in glamorous settings, but occasionally they were supposed to be more just like us. 

When Ann Blyth, in company with her aunt and uncle, moved into their new home in the Toluca Lake area of North Hollywood in 1947, the publicity men showed up, of course, to snap a few staged shots.

Here's Ann doing everyone's favorite chore: mowing the lawn.  She was nineteen in this photo. 

Escaping the studio publicity staff was probably more difficult than escaping yardwork.

*************************

The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.

Lustre-Creme Shampoo Advertisement

Hollywood stars back in the day probably appeared in as much advertising as they did movies.  Certainly glamour was a huge selling point, especially for a personal care product like shampoo, as pictured above in this Lustre-Creme Shampoo magazine ad.

The movie studios often teamed with advertisers to mutually push each other's products.  Here we see Ann Blyth in her costume from The Buster Keaton Story (1957), posed by a 1920s roadster on the set, with the tag line, "You'll love Ann Blyth in The Buster Keaton Story, A Paramount Picture in VistaVision."

Lustre-Creme Shampoo advertised heavily on radio as well, and many Old Time Radio, or "OTR" fans will recall the commercial jingle that sponsored Our Miss Brooks.  I'm not sure when Lustre-Creme was discontinued, but it's obviously no longer marketed. 

It's a lovely photo, though, the very image of casual elegance, whether for selling shampoo or movie.

***************************

The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.

Happy Birthday to Ann Blyth

I join a million or so of her other fans this day wishing a very happy 88th birthday to Ann Blyth.

I would guess this above studio publicity portrait to be from about 1948-49, roughly about the time she made her western, Red Canyon (1949).

The Merry Monahans - Lobby Card with Cast

A charming "parade of years" musical, The Merry Monahans (1944) was Ann Blyth's second film.

Pictured in this lobby card are costars Rosemary DeCamp, Jack Oakie, Peggy Ryan, and Donald O'Connor.

They lead us into the world of vaudeville, with its highs and lows, and hijinks and shenanigans. We discussed it a bit in this post on my Another Old Movie Blog.

It is one of Ann's Universal pictures that has not been released in DVD or, I believe, VHS, and is not shown on Turner Classic Movies, so it's a bit tough to find. 

****************

The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.

Ann Blyth on a Novel Cover

The book cover below is probably a very early photo of Ann Blyth as a child model. It is, quite surprisingly, currently being used on the cover of a novel.

The Bobby Soxer was first published by the late Hortense Calisher in 1986, and has been reprinted as an ebook by Open Road Media, which seems to be a company specializing in ebook reprints.

At this Getty Images website, which licenses stock photos, we have another photo of a child model.  This most definitely is Ann Blyth.  Here is another pose.

Comparing these Getty stock images with the photo on th book cover, we see the girl is identical, not only in hair and facial likeness, but she's wearing the same clothes, right down to the butterfly pin at her collar.

I'm not sure of her age in this photo; it could have been taken concurrently to her performing in the Broadway play, and later touring company, of Watch on the Rhine, or perhaps even upon her arrival at Universal when she was 14 or 15 years old. 

I don't if the Open Road Media company knows they are using a photo of a famous Hollywood actress as a child to illustrate this novel cover.  I had attempted to contact them for more information some months ago, but never received a reply.

This mystery came to me by way of a very observant fellow writer and blogger, Elisabeth Grace Foley of The Second Sentence blog, and author of many fine westerns and the Mrs. Meade Mystery series.  Here's her author page on Amazon for more info.  Elisabeth first noticed the amazing resemblance on the novel cover and brought it to my attention last year.  My thanks to her for passing along this curious bit of trivia.