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When Stars Collide
DivinationDIVINATION: "A LOST WORLD OF SOUL When you hear the word 'divination', ..... During the silent era it was thought a waste of money to make a movie with more than one star. Personalities like Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton were considered potent enough box office on their own. But with dwindling attendance during the great depression MGM decided to feature Hollywood's first all star ensemble cast in Grand Hotel (1932) starring the mammoth egos of Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore and Greta Garbo. The director Edmund Goulding was unable to let Joan Crawford and Garbo have any scenes together for fear they might try to upstage each other. Although she complimented her Swedish co-star's beauty, Crawford hated Garbo's demands for top billing. Knowing that Greta hated tardiness and Marlene Dietrich, Crawford was constantly late and played Dietrich's records loudly on the set.
Crawford had another classic encounter with rival Bette Davis on the set of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962). Betty, knowing that Joan was the widow of Alfred Steele, the former head of the Pepsi Corporation, had a Coke dispenser brought in for the cast and crew. When Joan was late Bette, an often nasty woman but a total pro, would proclaim loudly," Is the Widow Steele ready yet?" Joan retaliated by lining her dress pockets with weights so in a scene when Davis had to drag Crawford's nearly dead character across the floor, she almost broke her back.
The Myth Of The Writing FairyHere's a fun question to ponder. What do The Stand, The Hobbit and A Christmas Carol all have in common' The answer is simple. ..... Male stars don't always get along either. On location in Japan, for the filming of The Teahouse Of The August Moon (1956), Glenn Ford paid a visit to his co-star Marlon Brando's dressing room. "Marlon did you eat one of the chocolate chip cookies my wife sent me?". "No I didn't Glenn." "OK." Ford hesitated at the door. "Marlon, all you to do was ask, you didn't have to take one." Ford left to shoot his next scene giving the infuriated Brando time to go into Ford's dressing room and smash the remaining cookies with a sledgehammer.
Another Ford, Harrison, had a dustup with Brad Pitt during the making of The Devil's Own (1996). At first Pitt was excited to be working with the older actor, but his enthusiasm waned as the script focus moved away from his sympathetic young Irish killer to Ford's middle-aged, happily married policeman. Ford perhaps threatened by the younger star, accused Pitt of trying to be an apologist for the IRA. The film was delayed almost every day for hours as Pitt, Ford and director Alan Pakula would argue about the script. The budget skyrocketed to over ninety million, became a box office failure and led to Columbia Pictures head Mark Canton, being fired. During the production when the two had stars had fight scenes together they took out their frustrations by landing real blows.
Kid Movie Party ThemeLights! Camera! Action! Now with our exclusive movie party theme, your birthday child can star in their ..... An all star male cast can make it hard to stand out. Steve McQueen had been so desperate to appear in The Magnificent Seven (1960), he had intentionally crashed a car and used his minor injuries to temporarily get out of his television series Wanted Dea
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