Movie Quiz Answers Golden Age of Hollywood

The past two articles presented a Movie History quiz. Here are the answers. How well did you do?

1) Director David Wark Griffith invented the close-up, first used 1911. What was it? A wrench! Other characters believed the character was carrying a gun. Some

Rudolph Valentino
& Alla Nazimova in Camille

directors scoffed at the technology. We're paying for an entire actor. Why should we only see part of their body?

2) An iris-in is a photographic trick by which when a scene is shown at first only a small circle appears which grows larger and larger until the picture covers the entire screen.
3) There are sixteen impressions taken by the camera are shown on the screen in a second
4) There are one thousand feet are there in a reel of film
5) $175,000 dollars was the largest sum ever paid for the film rights to a stage play. It was paid by DW Griffith for Way Down East.
6) The names of three women writers given in the 1920 quiz were: Anita Loos, Frances Marion and Ouida Bergere. 

Just a few of the other prominent female screenwriters of the 1920s were June Mathis, Jane Murfin, Jeanie MacPherson, Elinor Glyn, Bess Meredyth, Clara Beranger, Dorothy Farnum, Agnes Christine Johnston, Frances Guihan and Eve Unsell.



7) The woman director given as the answer was Lois Weber. You could add Dorothy Arzner and Alice Guy-Blaché.  Lillian Gish directed her sister Dorothy in the 1920 film Remodeling Her Husband. The costar was Dorothy's husband at the time James Rennie. Cleo Madison and Mabel Normand were among the list of actresses who were directing in the 1920s.

8) Mack Sennett went by the pseudonym Walter Terry



The devices used to create old time radio sound effects were similar to those used behind the scenes of silent movies

9) The man in the photo at right provides sound effects on a variety of devices to enhance silent movies. In the photo, he's operating a wind machine, which

Sound effects man 1922

simulates the sound of a snowstorm or a similar type of weather event. 

**Note: The same sort of machine was used during the making of The Wizard of Oz (1939) to simulate the sound of the tornado.

10) Buster Keaton coined a new word Optience. He suggests we use it instead of the word Audience.  His word refers to people who attend the movie theater vs the stage theater. It's also used to refer to people who attend the movies vs those who listen to the radio.

11) Cecil B. DeMille was called the answer to an extra's prayer.

Open questions 1 through 11 in another tab
 
Also Known As:
12) Charlie Ray, Mary Pickford and Louise Glaum
13) "It may shock you to know that Arline Pretty gurgled in her cradle under that very same name."

Years earlier in 1917, a magazine offered a contest. Fans could win $25. Arline Pretty was looking for a new name. "Star to discard real name and $25 will be given for a new reel one." Guess the studio and/or the star never liked any of the suggestions?

14) Juliet Shelby aka Mary Miles Minter
15) Gilbert Roland and Barry Norton
16) Lucille Le Sueur aka Joan Crawford
17) Anita Dooley aka Nita Naldi
18) Ricardo Cortez, his birth name is Jacob Krantz
19) Mack Sennett, producer
20) James Kirkwood's wife Augusta Appel aka Lila Lee
21) Gladys Smith aka Mary Pickford
22) Lucille Langhanke Astor combined with the given name of Mary
23) It's Talmadge; he is Richard Talmadge born Sylvester Metz, who had been a boy member of the famed acrobats, the Mazetti Troupe.
24) Joel McCrea, because "he is the most slug-nutty person in Hollywood."
25) Joan Crawford (his wife at the time.) He also called her JoJo and she called him DoDo.
26) Theda Bara was the first screen vampire. Her nickname was The Vamp, short for vampire. Bara began making movies in 1914.
 

Alan Roscoe, Theda Bara in Camille.
This 1917 film is considered to be lost.

F. W. Murnau's  German film Nosferatu appeared in 1922. Count Orlok may have been the first cinema vampire, modeled after Bram Stoker's 1897 horror novel Dracula.

27) Lewis Joseph Cote aka Lew Cody
28) In 1920 the most famous horse in pictures was Bill Hart's 'Pinto'
29) Actress Carole Lombard married someone named William twice. In 1931 she married actor William Powell. In 1939 she married actor William Clark Gable.

News and Gossip

Lew Ayres and Ginger Rogers
1934

30) Ginger Rogers "was to have started work on a picture last Monday but did not show up. She had left a note pinned to her pillow. 'Dear Mama am going away. I'll be perfectly safe so don't look for me!'"

Her mother contacted the sheriff's department and asked them to search for her. Some of her friends had a hunch that Lew Ayres, her boy-friend knew where she had gone, but he agreed she needed the rest and kept her secret. 

Ginger, resting on a Nevada ranch was surprised to hear over the radio that she had been reported missing and contacted her mother right away. It was February 1934 at the time of her disappearance and Ginger Rogers was twenty-two years old. Rogers and Ayres were married later that same year.

31) "Dainty Lilian Harvey who weighs only 95 pounds can boast the smallest waist in Hollywood exactly nineteen and a half images. However Ginger Rogers who isn't quite as petite as Lilian weighing about one hundred and fifteen pounds comes very close to Lilian's waist measurements and perhaps hers may be called the second smallest."



What about your waist? The Ideal woman's figure through time....

Barbara Stanwyck 1932

32) Barbara Stanwyck was taking time off to try and heal a back injury. "Stanwyck suffered a serious spine injury several years ago which never properly healed. … Barbara's injured spine goes back to the days when she was working in Ten Cents a Dance, released in 1931. It was while making a scene for that picture that she sustained the injury."

By 1934 Stanwyck was nearing 30, she was probably more serious about life and her craft, her future. She had her health and her son to think about.

33) "Constance Bennett was the cause of the quarrel between Gilbert Roland and Clark Gable at a party at the home of Samuel Goldwyn. 

"Roland who escorted Connie to the party took offense at the manner in which Gable spoke to Constance and was quoted as saying angrily to Gable, 'You quit picking on her and pick on me.'

"Clark seemed willing and for a minute it looked like the start of a good old fashioned fist fight, but other movie luminaries present stepped in and calmed the boys.  In the absence of her husband Maquis Henry Falaise who is in China making a picture Roland has been acting as Connie's escort."

Gilbert Roland and Constance Bennett were wed in 1941 and remained married until 1945.

34) Karl Dane who made his first screen hit as the Swede in The Big Parade shot himself on April 14 despondent over his failure to obtain motion picture work.  Dane's body was found surrounded by newspaper and magazine clippings of his former success - cut short by talkies.

35) Helen Vinson was selected the most beautiful Technicolor subject for 1937 by the International Color Camera Club.

36) Dick Powell's contract with Warner Brothers contains a clause saying that Dick is not to marry while said contract is in effect - lest he jeopardize his popularity. Dick scoffs at the danger and wants it taken out.  Dick and Mary Brian have been going together so long that it is possible he wants to marry the girl. 

[It's been suggested that other stars had such clauses in their contracts and that in other cases studios forbade stars from marrying such as in the case of Jean Harlow and William Powell in the 1930s.]

37) Danielle Darrieux was paid to learn English.
38) "Are Herbert Marshall and Gloria Swanson a mutual consolation society? Herbert's marriage to Edna Best once one of filmdom's happiest seems on the verge of a break-up, Gloria's marriage to Michael Farmer is about to end in divorce - and Herbert and Gloria have been night-clubbing together."

39) Alice Faye didn't like stairs.

40) Sigrid Gurie was forbidden by her studio to be seen in public before the release of her first picture. 

Sam Goldwyn's publicity department suggested that she was the Norwegian answer to Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich as she was set to star in The Adventures of Marco Polo. After her debut, news was it "turned out she was from a little farm town of Cucamonga, California."

41) Lily Pons considered the number 13 to be good luck
42) Sue Carol had a phobia of birds, particularly hating their flapping wings.

These quizzes were prevalent and fun in the old magazines and even in the newspapers. They covered a variety of topics. I plan to run more from time to time. You'll find links here.

Open questions 12 - 42 in another tab

Download quiz questions and answers in a PDF file 

Print out for your Hollywood movie party or long car or plane trip. Fun to occupy friends between movies.

Related pages of Interest:

Old Hollywood Stars Thanksgiving Menus Quiz: Match the stars to the menus they served Their traditional Thanksgiving meals 

Retro TV Housekeeper Quiz Eight maids at Christmas not a-milking, Eight Maids at Holiday Time or Any Time

Group games for parties, For old and young: for Christmas, Birthdays, Vintage parlor games for any time of year, movie-inspired

Fake Snow Bringing winter to silent movies: Making snow blizzards in Hollywood California - Includes Way Down East

Keeping time with Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor: Gifts of watches and sapphires 1930s

Sources:
Motion Picture 1934
Movie Weekly 1922
Photoplay 1922, 1927, 1938
The Miami News  February 21, 1934
Picture Play Magazine 1920 and 1922
Talking Screen 1930

Cocktail Recipes film star ideas named drinks 1930s

Cocktail Party Vintage Hollywood Style Recipes

"The Garbo cocktail will make you act like a star? One of Hollywood's little

Bing Crosby
likes the
Bogey best

worries just now is that bartenders, without permission, are naming innumerable drinks for motion picture stars. 

"The Garbo cocktail for illustration has a dash of Swedish bitters in it and six of them would make anybody act, but Garbo never even saw one. There is a Gable cocktail but the suggestion that Gable really should be on the house probably will result in its fadeout. Wallace Beery seems the only big star who is safe for no one will consider putting out a Beery cocktail." -- March 1936

Rosalind Russell supplied the recipe for the Rosalind Russell to Lucius Beebe for his Stork Club Bar Book (Classic Cocktail Books series), a volume that also advertises the Ralph Bellamy Scotch Sour. 

Somehow vintage cocktails, those seen in our favorite films and the ones however they came to be, named for favorite film movie stars can be fun to make, serve and of course to drink.

Have you ordered a champagne cocktail after seeing them in An Affair to Remember? Tried a Gibson after that romantic train ride in North by Northwest? 

Some of these will give you an idea of how times have changed or stayed the same. A few may be less than politically correct. Retro drinks to use if you're planning an event, a movie party or the next time the family gets together. Toast one another over the 'net as you hate a Twitter party while a bunch of you watch movies together virtually.


The Stars Suggest Recipes for Cocktails & Drinks

Norma Shearer's favorite is a frappe consisting of one part cognac and one part grapefruit juice and sugar to suit your taste.

Stuart Erwin and Jane Collyer have a drink they call an Avenue A.
Two-thirds bourbon and one-third vermouth. Shake well and put on ice until thoroughly chilled. Add a sprig of mint.

"'The Upsy-Down cocktail has the potency of a Clara Bow kiss,' promises Richard Arlen. Probably you have never tasted a Bow kiss, but perhaps you have kicked a mule. The effects are the same. Dick's favorite mixture is thus concocted.
 
"'Take the juice of one lemon and disguise in four hookers (a hooker is a small glass about two inches tall) of Scotch whiskey. Add four teaspoonfuls of powdered sugar and one egg. Season with  two dashes of orange bitters. 

"'This should make enough for four people' said Arlen. 'Unless they're college students, in which case you'll only have enough for two. I mixed this for four Hollywood yes-men - and they went right out and said No to Cecil B. DeMille.'"

Clara Bow and Richard Arlen co-starred in Wings, the film that won the first ever Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Picture at the first Academy Awards, 1927.

Sherry Flip; They say Edward G Robinson likes this 
"His friends call it the Little Giant-Cracker Cocktail for Eddie's Benefit.
Take one-half jigger of imported sherry and pour into shaker.
Add one whole egg. (No, not the shell darlings.) Anyway, add one whole egg and one-half tablespoon powdered sugar and a liberal dash of rum. Pour into mixer with fine ice and shake until creamed. Serve in a cocktail glass and decorate the top with nutmeg."
 
The Bogey Cocktail, a favorite of Bing Crosby
Not named for Humphrey Bogart though. It was created when Crosby "entered a motion picture golf tournament." Good old Nineteenth hole, something to follow your game.

"'For each drink served in a ten-oz glass take two jiggers of gin, one part of lemon juice and a spoonful of powdered sugar. Fill the glass with cracked ice then add champagne until the glass is full.
 
"'No shaking, just stir,' says Bing. 'I guarantee this one will make you croon.'" 

The Morning Call
Use a tall shell glass, half filled with shaved ice. Add one-half wine glass of absinthe, one-half wine glass of lemon juice and one-half wine glass of Maraschino. Fill with seltzer water and stir.
"There are several morning cocktails. Here's a neat little number named The morning Call and prescribed by Grant Withers. It's a sure cure for those morning blues." - 1934

Joan Bennett prefers a good old Martini dressed up with a dash of absinthe and served in a glass with both lemon and orange peel.

There are drinks named for the original screen sex symbol, Rudolph Valentino. Included is the Blood and Sand cocktail named for one of his most famous films.
INGREDIENTS
2 oz. blended scotch, chilled
1 oz. Cherry Heering liqueur/Cherry Brandy
1 oz. sweet vermouth
2 oz. fresh squeezed orange juice
1 maraschino cherry, orange or lemon slice garnish
Add ice then shake, strain into 8 oz chilled glass

A fave of Fred MacMurray, suggested 1935
Bridge Punch
"For one serving, the juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cubes of ice, pint of ginger ale in a man-sized glass
Float a glass of claret on top and add some fruit"
Guess it's good for when you're playing cards?

Planter's Punch, specialty of The Brown Derby Restaurant
Like fruity drinks? This is made with a jigger of brandy, juice of three limes, a dash of grenadine and Jamaica rum floated on top. Served in a tall glass filled with shaved ice and garnished with cherries and a slice of orange.



Make a layered drink the old fashioned way, with your bar spoon

John Taffer, host of Bar Rescue demonstrated the Layered Cocktail on the Rachael Ray Show  "This Red-and-Green-Layered Cocktail Is Perfect for Christmas" Make drinks that wow the guests at your next party. Find the Rainbow cocktail layering tool below. There is also the VacuVin Cocktail Layering Tool and the good old Black and Tan Beer Layering Tool.

Claudette Colbert's favorite is a Parisian Pousse-café (a layered drink) made in a wine glass with two-fifths curacao, two-fifths Kirschwasser and one-fifth Chartreuse. These liquids should be floated one on top of the other. Ah, somewhere over the rainbow.... 

This and the Wicked Witch seem ideal for your next Wizard of Oz party, especially if you get some of those round ice cubes -- you can see Auntie Em inside. Some non-alcoholic versions are fine for kids -- make them into ice cubes. There are layered coffee latte versions.

Some other layered or stacked drinks include the
B-52
Jellyfish
Angel's Kiss
Wicked Witch
Nuclear Rainbow
Tequila Sunrise cocktail

This reminds me of those Astro pop lollipops they had when I was a kid. Candy Cafe has those and lots of other nostalgic candies.

Final Touch Glass Rainbow Cocktail Layering Tool

Constance Bennett offers the Brandy Blazer:
One lump of sugar one piece of orange peel,
One piece of lemon peel and one wine glass of brandy. 
Serve in a small thick glass, light with a match and allow to burn for 30 seconds stirring it all the while. How's that for a fancy mixed drink recipe.

Christmas 1947, Dana Andrews, his wife and kids are on a fishing trip. 
"Stevie, [his wife] explains wants to catch a barracuda to put in his Christmas stocking. He's got it figured out that if he gives Santa Claus such an elegant fish he'll get more presents.

"Later, much later, when the dishes are washed, Dana Andrews takes off for the Isthmus in the shore boat just to prowl around and maybe drop in at the bar for a Horse's Neck (ginger ale, soda and spiral lemon peel)."

A quick search for the Horse's Neck and I find that like many drinks it can be a nonalcoholic virgin drink or mocktail as described above or it can be made with bourbon or brandy, with a kick. 

The Horse's Neck cocktail is ordered in the 1935 Fred Astaire movie Top Hat, the 1914 Charlie Chaplin silent film Caught in a Cabaret, 1934 Lloyd Corrigan movie By Your Leave and the 1942 ZaSu Pitts' comedy, So's Your Aunt Emma!

Movie stars' Bars After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933:


Joan Crawford and several other stars are now adding wings to their house to make room for bars. A sip or at most two is all that Joan ever takes but her friends will be entertained lavishly in this manner to which they are accustomed. Her barroom will be paneled in natural knotted wood and equipped completely even to full barrels of beer on tap." .... One Christmas Joan Crawford redid an entire room for use by her husband, Franchot Tone.


Prohibition was repealed December 5, 1933. Many people had a Repeal Party
 
"It was a bar if you remember that Mary Pickford prepared as a Christmas surprise present for Douglas Fairbanks only little more than a year ago. When he returned from abroad to spend the holidays with Mary the room was sealed in cellophane and marked 'Not to be opened until Christmas.' A large party attended the opening festivities, the last large party that Mary and Doug gave before their separation.

"In Carole Lombard's newly completed home the bar is done in Scotch plaid with a small upright piano finished in plaid to match. 

At Joan Bennett's and Gene Markey's the bar and barroom are amusingly done in green and white, very modern." Didn't anyone have a basement bar back then? If so it wasn't in this article.

"Clark Gable the ol' mechanical wizard has a gadget that
helps him mix his drinks."
Final Touch 6 Bottle Bar Caddy Liquor Dispenser

"At Ruth Chatteron's and George Brent's the bar has been built into an over-sized closet off the second-floor den. It is all mahogany, delicately carved and a thing of beauty in its own right. Ruth gives only small parties and has no use for a large bar.

"Bing Crosby's bar looks like a music store, with its walls papered with the covers of some of the songs he's introduced. Peggy Shannon and Allan Davis built theirs right on the edge of the swimming pool flanked by dressing rooms and glass-enclosed for comfort on cooler evenings. You can swim to your drinks - and do!"


Jean Arthur, John Wayne A Lady Takes a Chance (1943) - Cactus Milk
Remember to drink responsibly, as they say

Recipes for Cocktails & Drinks named after movie stars

Mary Pickford Cocktail:
Light rum, pineapple juice, grenadine and maraschino cherry juice shaken with ice. Served in a cocktail glass

Douglas Fairbanks:
A modified martini. Plymouth gin, French vermouth. Garnish with both orange and lemon peel.

The Tramp aka The Charlie Chaplin
[Recipes differ 1 ounce each vs ¾ ounce each]
¾ ounce Broker's London dry gin
¾ ounce Plymouth sloe gin
¾ ounce Marie Brizard Apry apricot liqueur
¾ ounce fresh lime juice
It is supposed to be pretty tart. One site suggested adding dry vermouth. 
Shake well with ice and strain into a chilled coupe glass.

An article in Slate said, that the Charlie Chaplin cocktail should be "adjusted if it is to please a palate conditioned by Modern Times," (italics added by me.) Modern Times is one of Charles Chaplin's most famous films.



Clive Brook needs to go shopping, but he's been creative in decorating his bar

Do you have a drink shaker? They come in all different shapes and sizes. 

The Barware Styles® Classic, Elegant Stainless Steel 3-Piece Martini and

Cocktail Shaker Set is a cool style. Easy to clean and it's safe to use. It gets high ratings, good comments from buyers. Great price...
Included: Free Jigger, eBook.
Not Included: Strainer, Bar Spoon/Masher or Wooden Muddler for crushing fruits, etc.

Some recipes call for specific brands. Many of the recipes can be found in slightly different versions in different places. Use the finest ingredients that you can afford, whatever is right for your budget and your event.

Next, it may not be the first drink named after a celebrity, but it may be the first one you ever had. A mocktail, it's nonalcoholic.

The Shirley Temple
3 ounces lemon-lime soda
3 ounces ginger ale
Dash grenadine
Maraschino cherry for garnish

The Roy Rogers is very similar to The Shirley Temple. You substitute cola for the lemon-lime soda and ginger ale. 

The Ginger Rogers
1 ounce dry gin, 1 ounce dry vermouth, 1 ounce apricot brandy, 4 dashes lemon juice. Pour into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes. Shake well.
Strain into a chilled cocktail glass

Will Rogers
Gin, dry vermouth, orange juice and a few dashes of curacao. 

Not necessarily old-school far as I know but The Royal Resort Hotel in Las Vegas has The Barrymore Restaurant and it offers, steady now .... The Barrymore cocktail. They say it is "a spin on the Manhattan, combining Gentleman Jack, blood orange liqueur, and orange marmalade with a splash of vermouth." 

Looks like a pretty cool place with a vintage Vegas atmosphere. Maybe the ghosts of Ethel, Lionel or John Barrymore will chat or even party with you?

The Bob Hope cocktail
Offered in 1962 Paramount Studio's commissary
It consisted of tomato juice, yogurt, a dash of steak sauce topped off by strawberries.  Interesting.

Where are the cocktails named for Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre? 


Nick Charles gives a lesson in shaking your martini, a different rhythm for every shake
William Powell, Myrna Loy, The Thin Man

The Jean Harlow:
Light rum, shaken with sweet vermouth. Served with a lemon peel garnish. 


How to serve them:

If you choose to drink out of a slipper or stiletto, you can say you're partying in the style of the flappers of the 1920s.

"Never serve sweet cocktails before dinner," says Claudette Colbert. "Cocktails are an appetizer and should not dull appreciation of the meal to follow. 

"We were compelled to disguise some pretty horrible stuff with syrups during Prohibition. Now that is no longer necessary, why not give the cocktail its rightful function again?"


Temperature of Wine, more

"Be careful of the temperatures of the wines you serve," is Loretta Young's warning. "Ice only Rhine wine and champagne. White wines should be merely chilled. Fifteen degrees below room temperature is correct. Red wines should be at exactly room temperature. 

"But never warm any wine too suddenly. It loses its bouquet. Just place the bottle in the dining room several hours before you need it and let it be warmed gradually." Film stars aren't the only ones with good legs. Wine can have 'legs, tears or curtains,' just some of the jargon used by lovers of the grape.

How About Ice? Anyone thinking Frozen?

Kikkerland Gentleman's Silicone Ice Cube Tray
Thinking Charlie Chaplin & Buster Keaton
or Breaking Bad?
Cool sunglasses and Bow Ties are hot

Assortment of Round Ice Cube Trays and Molds 
There are round ice ball molds, too. Jon Taffer and other bar specialists
suggest round ice cubes may be best for using in drinks. They tend to be more clear. Add something like berries? Your guests may have never seen ice cube balls or spheres.
They often melt more slowly, too.
What size do you need?
Will you use them for anything besides ice cubes? Some you can use for desserts for instance.

"Never put ice in a glass with any liquor except for highballs, rickies and mixed drinks." This is advice from Gloria Stuart. "The one cordial exception if creme-de-menthe, into which a bit of ice should be dropped."


Irene Dunne suggests you consider having beer at your next party

 

Star Wars: Darth Vader Bottle Opener

Final suggestions... 

"Never fill a wine glass to the brim," Peggy Shannon will tell you. "Part of the function of the glass is to hold the bouquet of the wine and thereby dispense enjoyment of the odor as well as its flavor. Two-thirds full is correct."

"It is criminal to gulp down good wine," John Miljan says. "You might as well swallow your food without chewing it. Wine should be sipped if for no other reason than as a consideration to the host."


Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie as Jeeves and Wooster. Do you have a good recipe for a hangover remedy?

The New Drinking Code; OK to say 'I Don't Drink'

"At a mixed wine dinner, you must never serve more than two glasses with any course." This from Hedda Hopper. "You are not striving for the stupefaction of your guests; you are merely garnishing your food.

Wine is a palatable addition to a good meal but it cannot fully disguise a bad one no matter how much liquor you serve."

The repeal of Prohibition has had far-reaching effects. For one thing over-indulgence is no longer smart. If you don't like it, stay away from it. No stigma is attached these days to the simple statement, 'I don't drink.' 

"You may be surprised at the names appearing on the Hollywood list of avowed drys. Girls such as Lois Wilson might be expected, when you think of her screen roles. But the roster also includes such names as Mae West, George Raft, Jeanette MacDonald, Estelle Taylor and Rita LeRoy all of whom if you judge by their screen characterizations would go in for the intoxicating things in life."

 



Water sommelier; Bottled Water with a Difference

Many people would probably think that water is all the same, but one Berlin connoisseur has a different opinion. Water sommelier Jerk Martin Riese co-authored a book on the subject. Die Welt des Wassers He sampled various bottled waters for euromaxx. Not sure if the book is available in English or other languages.


Modern Times Charlie Chaplin (The Criterion Collection) Stream instantly or purchase the film on DVD


Eat Drink Movie Meals Eat along with your favorite film characters - Dinner and a Movie at Home  Making movie night special: Meal, Snack Ideas, Video Clips; Some drinks

The Frog and Blue Peach, Pub Naming Ideas

Holiday Menus: Different Hollywood Stars celebrated with varying styles of drink, if you party with May Robson, it's bring your own coffee, tea, lemonade or ginger ale. But you still get jollification.


Holiday Gift Guides, By Person, Price, Popular Brands, Type of prodct, monogram, funny, etc. Retro/Contemporary, Customize

"There's Still Time: Custom Gifts by Christmas" Holiday Shipping Deadlines: When will my gifts arrive? Customize if ordered today from Zazzle. Helpful! By type of item, For Her, Him, Posters, Tablet Cases, Shirts, Gifts :: By department and then by each item

DIY Create a Unique Zazzle Drinkware Gift Item Mug 
Personalize coffee mugs beer steins, 2 color combos and frosted mugs Zazzle 

Hollywood Vintage Louise Brooks Flasks  
See additional hip flasks

Notes: These recipes originally came from a variety of sources, have been merged into this list.
Anything within quotes is as it was in articles; commentary, italics, etc.  

** Please do drink responsibly, prepare to spend the night and/or call a taxi. Many cabs, etc offer free service this time of year. There was an accident in our neighborhood just last evening. It isn't worth hurting yourself or anyone else.

Sources The Milwaukee Journal, March 27, 1936 
Movie Classic 1934 
New Movie Magazine 1935 
Slate Magazine online, About.com, flickr

His Haunted Mansion The late Rudolph Valentino

Falcon's Lair Visit a Haunted House

Valentino's Falcon Lair

He built it for his wife, but she would never live there. A larger tragedy, he would die not long after its completion. 

The mansion on the hill may rival his grave site for having the most stories of Valentino ghost sightings. Tourist guides, real estate brokers, books and rumors tell of spooky happenings. Have you heard them, have you ever been on a ghost tour, a tour of haunted houses? The address is given as 1436 Bella Dr, Los Angeles, CA.

While some say that Valentino called it Falcon Lair and later owner Doris Duke dubbed it Falcon's Lair, you did occasionally see it called Falcon's Lair before the 1950s.

Stories have circulated around Hollywood of one caretaker who ran down the canyon in the middle of the night yelling that he had seen Valentino. Some even say he is still running.

Young Rudolph Valentino in
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
Screenplay by June Mathis,
a close friend who was said to have discovered Valentino

"I slept in Valentino's haunted house"
In 1928 a magazine reporter was assigned to spend the night in Valentino's bedroom. Would she or wouldn't she find a real haunted house? The actor had died only recently. She submitted a story with the title above. An excerpt:

"Now I am neither a scoffer nor a believer. What is beyond the grave is something no living soul has fathomed. Whether a departed soul can return to communicate with those not yet departed has never been  proved, so far as I know to a point of certainty."

Toward morning she was awakened, "feeling as though someone had entered the room above me. ... I looked up. Could I be dreaming? On the stairway was a shadow. I rose, approached. It disappeared. I sat down again. Once more, the shadow. ....

"I rose and approached this shadow. Was I insane or did it retreat up the stairs before me? I turned, picked up my cot, departed. ...

"The caretaker poked his head out of the second story garage window.

"'Did you see anything?' His nightgown billowed in the breeze as he called down to me.
 
"I shook my head slowly. 'N-n-no,' I answered."  She soon left the haunted mansion.

Harry Carey & Edwina Booth in Trader Horn
Original 8x10" Photo

The Cowboy & The Ghost, Enter Renter Harry Carey: 
I read that legendary Western star Harry Carey stayed there just one night before leaving because he'd seen Valentino's ghost. But newspaper and other accounts from the actor himself prove otherwise.

Still the ghostly legend continued. In August 1930, upon the fourth anniversary of the actor's death, a woman came to Falcon Lair. She was stopped by Harry Carey's chauffeur. She demanded admittance. 

"I have an appointment with Mr. Valentino. It is his anniversary and his spirits say I will meet him here."

"Not while I'm working here lady," the chauffeur reportedly said before closing the gates and sending her away.

Harry Carey, his wife and daughter 1930
in front of Falcon Lair

In 1930, Harry Carey, his wife and two young children rented Falcon Lair. The house had been empty for years before he moved in.  

Early in the family's stay, night-time sounds, windows banging and strange lights were off-putting and they considered leaving the home. But the actor famously said, "We've been living with lions and cannibals in Africa. No spook can scare us off." (Carey, the father of actor Harry Carey Jr., had been in the film Trader Horn, shot in Africa.) 

He was perhaps known as one of the great old Cowboy actors, and got an Oscar nomination for his role as the President of the Senate in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). John Wayne had paid tribute to him in the movie The Searchers. The film featured Olive Carey and Harry Carey Jr, Harry Carey's wife and son.

"One day by chance I discovered a hidden door that apparently led to a part of the basement. I opened the door and half-a-hundred bats rushed out. That

Harry and daughter
explore the basement
What was stashed in that box?

ended the tapping." 

"Exploring the basement through the hidden door, Carey said he found a large box containing a mass of electrical wires and switches. He traced those wires and found they led up a chimney to a built-in bookcase in the room above. 

"From the bookcase, hidden wires ran to other parts of the house. Investigating further, Carey said he learned that at Valentino's death a caretaker with spiritualistic leanings had been hired to watch the property.
 
"Carey said the caretaker and his followers held seances in the rooms where electric terminals were found. From various electric connections pale blue and green light mysteriously flashed on and off thru the house. 'We seem to have solved the mystery,' Carey said."

I found versions of this story in a handful of old newspapers and an old

Pola Negri in Woman of the World
8x10 Silver Halide
Archival Quality Repro Photo Print

magazine from mid-1930. Apparently Mr. Carey was able to turn off the flashing lights but they don't say if he disconnected the wire-works or removed them. 

Don't mix up the actor Mr. Carey with Harry Caray who broadcast for the Chicago Cubs for 16 years. They just happen to have the same name.


Pola Negri:

In 1934 Pola Negri, the final lover of Valentino, purchased Falcon's Lair. She said she wanted to live there 'together with him.' It was where they had planned to live after they were married.

"'That first day when I arrived just as the sun was sinking over the last hill and I stepped through the gate he was there to greet me. He was here, Rudy, his vibrations were everywhere, I could feel him, gay and charming telling us not to be sad not to mourn not to grieve.' 

"From the big house came only silence and yet listening with Pola's ears I seemed to hear the vibrations of Rudy's gay laughter, song and revelry and living voices. ..... 

"'He is less a shadow even though he is gone, than men who live in the world as flesh and blood, because he was all things to all women. He had glamour for all women. But he had also the wistful appeal of the boy whom all women want to mother, to scold a little perhaps, to soothe and console and cherish in their hearts. 

"'He was a brother to girls who never had brothers or having them wished their brothers could be as Rudy was. He was the other son of all elderly women whose own sons had deserted them or disappointed them. He was the Sheik, the good comrade ... he was all those things to me and to all women.'

She talked about how Valentino rode a horse. 'You know how Rudy rode, like a god astride some celestial stallion. That was more than eight years ago... Rudy has been gone eight years on the twenty-third of last August... but it is yesterday to me.' ...

"Pola's white hand still clasping a red rose, covered her heart. ... 'We were both very interested in spiritualism. We used to use the Ouija board and we would get the amazing results together.' ... Yes there is something magnificent, something very much in the Grand Manner about this woman who will love Rudolph Valentino for as long as there is Time."
-- Motion Picture Magazine interview 1934

Not too long after she'd purchased the house Negri was off to France and Germany making movies.  Yes, there was a reference to Pola Negri on a recent episode of Downton Abbey.

The house would continue to change hands, some people owning, others renting. In 1945 actress Ann Harding purchased the home for, I believe $75,000. 


Thirty mediums conduct 1948 birthday seance

Seance scene from 1922 German Silent Film
Dr. Mabuse The Gambler
Directed by Fritz Lang

Seances would continue to be held at the mansion. May, for his birthday and August the month of his death are particular times where it's hoped his spirit may appear. 

For your Seance or Party
Set 6 Antiqued
Vintage Deco
Mercury Glass Candle Holders

On the actor's birthday, May 6, 1948, thirty mediums attempted to confer with Valentino in his hilltop home. Members of the press were in attendance. 

While they did not see or hear the star, some of the mediums claimed that they'd heard, seen or felt the spirit of Valentino. Someone reported message had been channeled: 

"This is Rudolph. You are in my house. I am your host. Please be my guests." 

There were other manifestations claimed such as a loud tap on the window and the flickering of a candle on his birthday cake.
-- Spokane Daily Chronicle, May 7, 1948

The Syndicate plans for 1949, Lair for Loveless Women:
In 1949 five wealthy women, referred to only as The Group or The Syndicate bought Falcon's Lair. There were extravagant and innovative plans for the house to become a sanctuary so loveless women from all over the world could come and live with his ghost should it truly live there.

"Plans were made for a meditation sanctum where lovelorn women can worship the actors memory, a wishing well for the loveless. Bursting rockets every night in clusters of red white and blue to represent purity, passion and devotion.

There would be "private showings after vespers of Valentino's most famous film, The Sheik. Their attorney said, 'For tens of thousands of lovelorn women, the only inspiration in life is the worship of Valentino's memory.'"
The Sydney Morning Herald, February 13, 1949

It doesn't look like these plans came to fruition.
  

Calling Millicent Rogers and Clark Gable to The Mansion...
I've also read that Millicent Rogers who bought the home in 1949, spent only one night there before being chased out by the ghost of Rudolph Valentino. An

Clark Gable
8x10 glossy Photo

August 1953 Sydney Morning Herald article briefly explained that Millicent Rogers, heiress to some of the Standard Oil millions, "leased Falcon Lair for three months and left next morning."

Socialite, fashion icon, jewelry designer and art collector Millicent Rogers craftedjewelry in the home while she lived there. At the time, she was dating Clark Gable, with whom some sources say she was madly in love. 

This was after the death of Carole Lombard and before his 1949 marriage to Sylvia Ashley. Rogers designed special items for him, cuff links and such. The two dated for some time. Gable's dalliances with actress Virginia Grey upset Rogers a great deal. 

She broke it off with Gable with a letter. She sent a copy of the letter to columnist Hedda Hopper and Hopper reportedly printed the letter in her column. The Dear Clark letter has since been reprinted in books about Rogers and Gable such as Clark Gable: Biography, Filmography, Bibliography. Did Clark Gable ever visit Falcon's Lair? Quite possibly. Who out there knows?

After the difficult break up with Mr. Gable, Millicent Rogers left Los Angeles and so left Falcon's Lair. It wasn't Valentino who drove her out but a more contemporary Hollywood sex symbol, Clark Gable. If you get a chance, visit the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, New Mexico.

Gloria Swanson in The Love of Sunya 1927
It is a film Swanson also produced

In the 1950s actress Gloria Swanson rented the home while she was in the area making a film. She had earlier visited the home to attend a seance. If there were any ghostly happenings while Ms. Swanson was there, I've not heard of them.

Overlooking Cary Grant 1954 ...
In early 1954 the home was rented by Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton for her son Lance Reventlow as a 21st birthday gift. 

Hutton was doing some remodeling for him. The house now overlooked Cary Grant's "half-glass California type home" on a hill below. Hutton had been married to Cary Grant in the mid-1940s.

After Hutton and Mr. Reventlow, the home reportedly sold to Doris Duke. One newspaper described Duke as being 'twice married and breathtakingly rich.' She owned the mansion for years.

Doris Duke was married
to HR Cromwell 1935-1943

I read that in the 1950s Edgar Bergen and family, of course including the young Candice Bergen, lived at Falcon's Lair. Haven't been able to substantiate it. Many people rented the home, sometimes for a short time.

In 1966 Virginia Hill Hauser was renting the home. She was found dead that same year. Ms. Hauser was said to be a companion of gangster Bugsy Siegel.

It's been over eighty years since Valentino's death. The mansion is said to be haunted. Have you visited Rudolph Valentino's former home? What stories have you heard?? 
 

Villa Valentino
Other sites are said to be regularly haunted by the ghost of Rudolph Valentino. There is the site of home he shared with Natacha Rambova, a home built in 1922, referred to as Villa Valentino; 6776 Wedgewood Place Whitley Heights. The house was razed in 1951 to make way for the Hollywood Freeway but you may be able to see some of the foundation.


Other Pages in this series:
Rudolph Valentino Speaks from Beyond: The actor speaks to his wife Natacha Rambova

When I Come Back: Valentino and Rambova prepare to leave on honeymoon, he says in essence, I'll Be Back

Strange experiences at Valentino's Grave
Valentino's Grave Site: Halt! Who goes there?? The caretaker at his grave kept a diary for years from the day the star was interred. He shared some entries in an article. Ghostly experiences? Did he see The Lady in Black?

Rudolph Valentino's Impact National Lover, Movie Idol, Sex Symbol: Would he be such big a star today?

Related articles and books of interest:

Haunted Places: The National Directory: Ghostly Abodes, Sacred Sites, UFO Landings and Other Supernatural Locations Go on a celebrity ghost hunt

Too Rich: The Family Secrets of Doris Duke

The narrowest house in New York City Edna St. Vincent Millay, Margaret Meade, Shrek ... John Barrymore is said to haunt a former apartment he had in New York City. Legend has it that Barrymore and Cary Grant lived in the Greenwich Village house in the 1920s.

Searching for Beauty: The Life of Millicent Rogers, the American Heiress Who Taught the World About Style

Sources not cited elsewhere
The Ogden Standard-Examiner,  Milwaukee Sentinel, Greeley Daily Tribune,  The Idaho Falls Post  March 31-April 3 1930
The Miami News, September 3, 1946  
Motion Picture 1930 
Picturegoer March 1923
Picture Play September 1926