Friday, June 20, 2008

Four For Friday - Old Hollywood Style

It has been awhile since I did one from old Hollywood so I thought I would do one here and then reveal it in the mass reveals. That way, you don't have to wait very long to see the answer. The answer is out there to be found by the way. Most of it. There is one new twist.



Four people involved in this. #1 and #2 were actors who made their fame in films, but both got their only real serious award nomination for television. Any movie lover will know who #2 is. #1, maybe not. #3 was an actress but gave it up when she married #1. Eventually she married #2 as well although the marriage to #2 was as a cover for #2 being gay. The twist to this story involves #4. #4 was an actor who also married into a really wild family. Everyone will know #4. #4 also tended to go both ways as well which must have made it fun when prior to #4's marriage, #1,#2,#3 and #4 used to periodically share one bed.

50 comments:

alan said...

can't wait for the reveals, ent

MontanaMarriott said...

HUH?!!??!
LOL
Enty, can we get a timeframe?
Was color invented at the time?

Anonymous said...

What wild families do we have from the mid 50s and back? (remember this is an Old Hollywood.)

Barrymore (Were there any women barrymores?)

I wanted to go with Liz Taylor, but she had so many husbands it's hard to keep track.

Let's try this one:
#1 - Errol Flynn
#2 - Dick Haymes
#3 - Nora Eddington
#4 - no clue.

mooshki said...

Please tell me that Cary Grant is involved somewhere. He is my favorite actor of all time. (I know, not very original.) Hmmm, I have to go find out of one of Cary's wives was from a wild family.

MontanaMarriott said...

could #4 be Peter Lawford, who ended up marrying in 1954 Ethel Kennedy?

Sinjin said...

WOW. That's it. WOW.

mooshki said...

Oh, lord. I just did a search at emmys.tv, and the number of big names in the '50s is staggering.

mags said...

I like following everyone's sleuthing.

I don't think this is #4, but reading the names of dnfrommn's, I found this picture of Dick H. with Rock Hudson. (I don't think #4 is Rock but the picture is funny)
right hand side towards the bottom
http://www.dickhaymes.com/

lycanthos said...

I just wanted to chime in on Ted's blind item. I believe I read something that Shia was caught in a bath house.

I'll give a link to it, but keep in mind this is a gay adult site thru blogspot. Not Safe For Work.

Here's the article:

http://rawanddisorder.blogspot.com/2008/06/happy-birthday-bitch_11.html

A Pimp Named DaveR said...

This should be easier to get than we think.... because there aren't a lot of "Old Hollywood" people who won Emmys, but not Oscars.

Some quick research: Cynthia Stone was married to both Jack Lemmon and Cliff Robertson... but both of them won Oscars (and each won in the '60s, too.)

Dixie Carter is/was married to Hal Holbrook (Emmy, no Oscar) and George Hearn (Emmy, no Oscar)... but she didn't exactly give up acting.

I'm baffled.

Pinky said...

How about Milton Berle and Joyce Matthews and Billy Rose? Don't know who # 4 is, maybe Errol Flynn?

mooshki said...

"Oh lord" again. When you start tracking the marriages you realize just how incestuous Hollywood has always been.

Possibility: Gig Young, Elizabeth Montgomery, Robert Foxworth

mooshki said...

Drat, missed that Gig won an Oscar. This is HARD!

mooshki said...

Plus, duh, Elizabeth Montgomery didn't quit acting. I give up for today.

mooshki said...

One last gasp: I don't know if this is too obscure, but Robert Florey, Virginia Dabney, Lloyd Nolan.

lutefisk said...

I wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot Affleck!

Anonymous said...

lol@affleck. He can't be on this one Adrian lol

lutefisk said...

Sylvia--we CAN'T give up yet--no one even tried!

Anonymous said...

old actors that I have read are gay or bi.

Rock Hudson
Errol Flynn
Cary Grant
Peter Lawford
Rudolf Valentino
Gary Copper
Raymond Burr (never married)
Randolph Scott
James Dean
Sal Mineo
Montgomery Clift
James Cagney

Lilandorth said...

Hello everyone: Coming out of lurker status for an Old Hollywood BI...last time I was here was for the Timmy/Shimmy adventure.(!)
The BI says that the the actors made their fame in films but got as serious award "nomination" for TV. I searched briefly but could not find Emmy nominees...but here is a list of Emmy winners (from 50's thru mid 60's) who were known for previous film work.

Milton Berle
Ed Wynn*
Alan Young
Red Skelton
Jimmy Durante
Robert Montgomery*
Donald O'Connor
Robert Young
Raymond Burr
Danny Kaye*

Probably need to get rid of *'d ones as they won Oscars...though Danny Kaye's was an honorary one.

Probably the next step would be to see who each of them were married to and if there is a connection..
Also any ideas on the "wild family"?

Impertinent Vixen said...

In 1948 Eve Abbott divorced Keenan Wynn to marry Van Johnson, supposedly on studio orders to cover up Johnson's being gay. Eve was an actress but not famous. #4 could be Peter Lawford; he's of the same generation and married into the Kennedys. Both men worked mainly in films but each were nominated for a best actor Emmy.

marie said...

@impertinent vixen: you beat me to it! both ned wynn ( keenan's son, who wrote a pretty funny autobiography about growing up in hollywood), and his mother mentioned van johnson being gay. and peter lawford was my first guess for 4 too. great job!!!

Pinky said...

Imp - is that Louise Brooks as your avatar?

surfer said...

For some reason, Kirk Douglas comes to mind - he was quite the player. I can't remember if his first wife (Michael's mom) was an actress, or his current wife. But there were some great guesses.

mooshki - earlier you mentioned Cary Grant. He was married to Dyan Cannon, and they had a daughter.

And montanamarriott, Peter Lawford married Pat Kennedy, not Ethel (Ethel was RFK's wife).

Judi said...

Imp Vixen and others, I think you've got it.

DetroitRocker said...

Hi ya'll new blogger here... Had to get in on this one.

I thought it strange that Robert Evans was in the pictures for today. This man has been around the block a couple of times, could he be the bi for today? He has been married a couple of times and is known to float both ways....spouses: Sharon Hugueny (1961-1962)
Camilla Sparv (1963-1965)
Ali MacGraw (1969-1972)
Phyllis George (1977-1978)
Catherine Oxenberg (1998-1998)
Leslie Ann Woodward (2002-2004)
Victoria White (2005-)

Those of us that think Holliweird is weird today in the old days it was really weird, just covered up more.

Cary Grant is another good guess he was married to American’s original “rich-bitch,” dime store heiress Barbara Hutton she was married to "Prince" Alexis Mdivani, 1933 - 1935 (divorced)
Count Kurt von Haugwitz-Reventlow, 1935 - 1938 (divorced)
Cary Grant, 1942 -1945 (divorced)
Prince Igor Troubetskoy, 1947 -1951 (divorced)
Porfirio Rubirosa, 1953 - 1954 (divorced)
Baron Gottfried von Cramm, 1955 - 1959 (divorced)
Prince Pierre Doan, 1964 -1966 (divorced)

Cary Grants spouses were
Virginia Cherrill (1934-1935)
Barbara Hutton (1942-1945)
Betsy Drake (1949-1962)
Dyan Cannon (1965-1968)
Barbara Harris (1981-1986)
Domestic partner(s) Maureen Donaldson (1973-1977)[1][2]


Betsy Drake was from the famous Drake Hotel family. She gave up acting when she married Cary. She is also the one that introduced Cary to LSD. Grant's personal life was complicated, involving five marriages. Rumors persisted regarding his sexual orientation.

kellygirl said...

wow! Robert Evans -- phew! I need a cigarette just reading his spouse list

nice work, guys

PotPourri said...

Y'all have some great answers. I would love it to be Marcus Welby MD, then of course, James Brolin, but I guess not.

#4 is obviously Peter Lawford.

PotPourri said...

Ali McGraw, Steve McQueen, Robert Evans and Peter Lawford? But did Ali McGraw give up acting when she married McQueen?

PotPourri said...

Ali McGraw on IMDB says: The roles she walked away from to marry lover Steve McQueen were Daisy in The Great Gatsby (1974) and Evelyn in Chinatown (1974).

Unknown said...

I think impertinent vixen got it right. Van Johnson is still alive and I got this from Wikipedia to elaborate what impertinent vixen already has mentioned:

Johnson married Eve Lynn Abbott on January 25, 1947, the day her divorce from actor Keenan Wynn was finalized. In 1999, Eve told a reporter that their marriage had been arranged by MGM because the studio "needed their star to be married to quell rumors about his sexual preferences".

In his 2005 biography of Louis B. Mayer, Lion of Hollywood, Scott Eyman quotes her as saying, "In retrospect I can see he (Mayer) was arranging my marriage to Van just as Universal did for Rock Hudson. That was a farce. Ours was a real marriage. I was in love with Van, but I wouldn't have married him if I'd known he was a homosexual."

According to stepson Ned Wynn, the Johnsons separated in 1961 over an alleged affair by Eve with a young man, and divorced in 1968. Eve Lynn Abbott Wynn Johnson died in 2004 at the age of 90.

The Cocoanut Grove said...

This story has been around for years, including the sharing Peter Lawford part.

MGM made up Van Johnson's "metal plate in the head" story to cover up the real reason for his lack of WW2 service- he'd admitted his homosexuality on his enlistment forms.

what is eight past six? said...

Ahem.

#1 is Ben Affleck.
#2 is Marc Anthony.
#3 is JLo.
#4 is Brad Pitt.

Okay, obviously, NOT. But if you ignore the award nomination part, this totally fits (JLo was an actress but pretty much "gave up" whatever acting talent or box office pull she had left when she and Ben did Gigli, you see? And Marc and JLo did that film together, so that technically makes him a film actor. I'm using technicalities to my advantage here.)

So everyone would know Brad - he and Angie are the most talked about couple in Hollywood. Before Brad married Angelina (this is the wild family), he, JLo, Marc, and Ben used to share a bed together. That's the twist because there has never been any tangible link between Brad and the other three before. And JLo and Marc dated before she had even met Ben so that even makes it more plausible.


YAY WE MADE IT BEN AFFLECK! Give me the rest of this weekend and I'll come up with a better one. LOL, I need a life.

lutefisk said...

Gayla, we totally need to stick Clooney in there, & then we would so have our blind!

lutefisk said...

Gayla--the connection just hit me--the missing link is Gwynneth--she was engaged to Brad, bed Ben. & at this rate, probably bedded Angie, also!

budford said...

Natalie wood and rj and gregson?

Impertinent Vixen said...

Pinky: Yes, that is Louise Brooks!

mooshki said...

Way to go, Gayla! And congrats to Vixen and others. I can't believe you figured this one out!

p.s. Ent, keep up the old Hollywood stories - they are great! I also liked the blinds you did during the strike (crew instead of cast). I know there was no way we'd ever guess any of them, but I still find it fascinating to read about what goes on behind the scenes.

Merlin D. Bear said...

DNfromMN said...
What wild families do we have from the mid 50s and back? (remember this is an Old Hollywood.)

Barrymore (Were there any women barrymores?)

Ethel Barrymore - started in stage, moved to film in the 40's


Let's try this one:
#1 - Errol Flynn
#2 - Dick Haymes
#3 - Nora Eddington
#4 - no clue.

But Haymes' IMDB page lists one marriage, to Fran Jeffries; Nora Eddington doesn't even get a mention on the page - I think that eliminates both of them.

I'm inclined to go with Vixen's guess re Lawford as he was reputed to be a notorious lothario back in the day (I've always wanted to use that word...LOL) - and would supposedly bang anything walking.
However, Van Johnson and Errol Flynn I'm not too sure of...I seem to remember Johnson more from film than from TV, aside from a few cameos as himself, however IMDB does show one Emmy nom for "Rich Man, Poor Man" in 1976.
And the same with Errol Flynn...according to his IMDB page (here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001224/awards) he got as total of 5 awards, 4 for film (including 2 "Sour Apple" awards for being "Least Cooperative Actor" but did nab a Walk of Fame star for Television, however no mention of an Emmy nom.

Sorry for only shooting down previous theories, but that's all I got for now.

Back to work.

Wil said...

Okay .. you cannot just put out there that Robert Evans is gay/Bi and then provide no proof! I mean Geez!! Among other things .. I have a long term crush at stake here!! Dang!

budford said...

Easy to believe that Evans is up for anything not necessarily gay bi just anybody and everybody. LOL
He married into a wild family when he married Oxenberg and his kid dated RJs kid, that could be the modern twist. Natalie was in a swinger movie, they're all friends, maybe they did a little research. LOL

sillyme said...

How does Gayla's guess in any way, shape, or form pertain to "Old Hollywood"? Note to all of you: the answers CANNOT be J.Lo, Brad Pitt, Affeck, etc.!!

lutefisk said...

Isn't JLO kind of "old"?

shoe addict said...

sillyme,

Its a well known joke among regular posters and readers that afflek is a popular guess. they are just kidding and/or it is now a challenge to make afflek somehow fit in every blind. we are WELL AWARE thats hes not old hollywood...but its still fun/clever tryin to make him the answer to every blind...get it???

Unknown said...

now the missing link between the always fitting affleck and whoewer old hollywood you wish, is the almighty seven step link to everybody: kevin bacon, the universal connection through time and space...

lutefisk said...

Dschingis:
Path from Ben Affleck to Kevin Bacon:
Ben Affleck was in Good Will Hunting (1997) with Matt Damon
Matt Damon was in Ocean's Eleven (2001) with Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts was in Flatliners (1990) with Kevin Bacon
Ben Affleck's Bacon number is 3

shoe addict said...

lmao, good job adrian!
All hail Xenu, the chosen one (shiloh) and the almighty Kevin Bacon

lutefisk said...

I am the first to admit I need to get a life!

apartment huntress said...

OK, I need to get a life...

damn you, google!

http://oracleofbacon.org/cgi-bin/oracle/movielinks?game=1&secondname=ben+affleck

The Oracle of Bacon at Virginia
ben affleck has a Bacon number of 2.

Ben Affleck was in Field of Dreams (1989) with Steve Eastin
Steve Eastin was in Rails & Ties (2007) with Kevin Bacon

Kelsey said...

oh my gah all the sleuths from the timmy/shimmy days are coming out of the woodwork (myself included)

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