During the 1950s there was a Hollywood haunting – her name Vampira. In the heyday of TV, at a time when the studio system had started to crumble and popcorn made way for TV dinners, Vampira monopolised Friday night TV schedules. Dressed head to toe in Raven Black, the hostess introduced forgotten z-grade Hollywood horrors...Read More
Mildred Shay, once the toast of Hollywood dubbed ‘Pocket Venus’ (‘My tits were better than Hedy Lamarr’s’) is now lonely in London. Her cat food-ridden, Wonderbra-littered, fading flat on Cundy Street, Belgravia, has few visitors. And then arrives Austin, initially on a research mission for The Daily Telegraph. She flirts with him outrageously, dressed in cocktail...Read More
It’s not Gene Kelly or Ginger Rogers who catch my eye amongst the glitterati, but a simply dressed white haired woman on a walker. I’m beguiled by her very ordinariness, fascinated to know who she was or who she had been. But what she revealed to me as by way of her place card at...Read More
The setting, a cottage in the shadow of the Hollywood sign is akin to a Grimm’s fairy tale. Howard and Austin captured in a tangle of wild roses. Its thorny occupant the ‘golden-curls’ childlike Mary Philbin star of Phantom of the Opera (1925) hiding in the shadows within. Not pleased, Mary refuses to talk adamant...Read More
In the High Desert past Joshua Tree, deep in the Morongo Valley, Howard and Austin find a star in hiding. She’s concealed herself inside a Frank Lloyd-Wright designed Spiritual Retreat and peering through the grime of Judith Allen’s rusted carcass of a 50s Ford Crestline, I see by the fact the dashboard has melted into...Read More
A brief thank you from us
We wanted to create a platform for people to sample our writing. Combined, we wanted to bring colour to the stars of yesterday; who were anything but black and white. There was this gentleman’s agreement between us and a few of the old stars we knew that we’d take their names into the next century. Through our writing and this website, we're spreading the word far and wide so more will know the names of the forerunners to today stars and modern celebrities.
