Polka Dots

Old Hollywood Trivia

Lucille Ball : She was fired from working at an ice cream store because she kept forgetting to put bananas in banana splits.

- Lucy and Desi Arnaz began I Love Lucy (1951) in the hopes of saving their marriage.

Loretta Young : Young had a low tolerance for foul language, so much in fact that whenever she went to set she brought with her a “swear box”. Her swear box was used to hold money from cast and crew members who swore within her presence who in return would put money in the box.

Marilyn Monroe : The first time she signed an autograph as Marilyn Monroe, she had to ask how to spell it. She didn’t know where to put the “i” in “Marilyn”.

- When she wasn’t acting, she preferred to wear nothing but a bathrobe and occasionally a bikini.

Frank Sinatra : Hated giving autographs.

- His mother and his father had been hoping for a girl, and had already chosen the name Frances. So they gave him the masculine form of the name: Francis.

Audrey Hepburn : Felt she was miscast as Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

- Among her final words on her death-bed were "Remember the children when I’m gone, please make sure those poor starving babies get enough to eat.”

Tallulah Bankhead : She was said to be the inspiration for the character of Cruella De Vil in Walt Disney’s 101 Dalmatians.

- She smoked 150 cigarettes a day.

Vivien Leigh : Was obsessed with hiding her large hands. Gloves were a favorite cover-up, she owned more than 150 pairs.

- A heavy smoker, Leigh was smoking almost four packs a day during filming of Gone with the Wind (1939).

Vivien Leigh with the Siamese cat given to her by Laurence Olivier, called New Boy, 1940’s.

Screentests of Olivia de Havilland (as Melanie Hamilton), Vivien Leigh (as Scarlett O'Hara) and Leslie Howard (as Ashley Wilkes) for “Gone With the Wind” (1939)

Elizabeth Taylor, c. 1959.

Nena von Schlebrugge

“I don’t think anybody that has a brain can really be happy. What is there really to be happy about? You tell me. If you’re a thinking human being, there’s no way to divorce yourself from the world. Yes, I probably was happy when I was married to Bogie, but I was very young then. I had a good growing-up life, I would say, but I wasn’t really happy, because I was an only child, and I wasn’t part of a whole family—what we in America consider the proper family, a father and a mother and child, which, of course, is a big crock we know—and yet I had the greatest family anyone could wish for in everyone on my mother’s side. So what you think is happy? Happy shmappy. I think you have to be unconscious to be happy. Are you unconscious?”

- Lauren Bacall

July 1942. Klamath Falls, Oregon. “At the sideshow of the circus.” Photo by Russell Lee for the Office of War Information. View full size.

Katharine Hepburn on set of The Philadelphia Story, 1940

Author - Roddy McDowall - Bette Davis c.1960

September 2004 - Olivia de Havilland and Angelina Jolie at the Premiere Women in Hollywood Awards.  Olivia de Havilland was awarded the Premiere Legend Award.  Upon receiving the award, Miss de Havilland made the following remarks:

“Lots of lovely things have happened to me in my long life, but I never dreamed that I would ever be designated a “legend”. To begin with, I always thought you had to be dead to receive that distinction, but Premiere magazine has proved me mistaken. And I cannot tell you how delighted I am that it has dubbed me a legend.

There have been many women who have become legends in past times, all of whom, I like to think, are together in the great beyond living in a beautiful palace of gold and crystal. And when my time comes to ascend to the upper realms - we hope that is the direction in which I will go! - I shall expect to find at the admissions desk an invitation to dwell with them, and if I should not find an such an invitation awaiting me, I shall storm the gates! And if these should suddenly and violently be thrust open by an irate and imperious Queen Elizabeth the first - looking strangely like Bette Davis - demanding of me my credentials, I shall tell her, on September the 14th, in the year 2004, I was designated a legend by Premiere magazine! And then I shall say to her, and who may I ask are you? I’m so pleased. I thank you, again and again. Love and kisses to all.“ (x)