But, Darlings...

...she's your Auntie Mime!

St. Patrick

Lee Patrick in The Walls Came Tumbling Down (Columbia, 1946)

Lee Patrick and Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (Warner Bros., 1941)

Lee Patrick and Bette Davis in Now, Voyager (Warner Bros., 1942)

Lee Patrick, Ann Blyth and Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce (Warner Bros., 1945)

Willard Waterman, Rosalind Russell and Lee Patrick in Auntie Mame (Warner Bros., 1958)

Lee Patrick in Singin' Spurs (Columbia, 1948)



The real Saint Patrick, darlings.

For Those Who Fancy Coloring Books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday Teetotalling...

 

 

 

...with your Auntie Mame!

On The Boardwalk With Auntie Mame

She really could have switched to purple by now.

No Matter How Outsized The Accessory...

...none could tussle with Russell.

ROSALIND RUSSELL

June 4, 1907 - November 28, 1976

High Tone

 

 

 

The fabulous Dolores Delargo Towers recently celebrated the birthday of the waspishly suave Robert Montgomery, an actor we've never been able to warm up to, although he was a perfectly serviceable foil for nearly every major female star on the Metro lot: Garbo, Shearer, Crawford, Loy, et al. We always suspected that, for a long while, MGM considered Montgomery interchangable with two other contract players, Robert Young and Franchot Tone: leading men who could be depended upon to not let the spotlight stray too far from their top-billed leading ladies.

Robert Young and Joan Crawford in The Shining Hour (MGM, 1938)

 

Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell in Live, Love and Learn (MGM, 1937)

 

Franchot Tone and Jean Harlow in Suzy (MGM, 1936)

Rule #1 at Metro: Keep your face in profile and/or shadow when posing with one of the MGM goddesses!

Tone is the most fascinating to us, and although not conventionally handsome, he has a magnetic, charismatic pull -- certainly, it was catnip to Miss Crawford, who made him Mr. Crawford in short order. And, because this is a high class blog, we share this, our favorite anecdote about the elegant, cultured Franchot Tone: "He jerked off the consonants," one Hollywood wag quipped of Tone's rich, mellifluous voice, "and sucked off the vowels."

 

Joan certainly seemed to be in a swoon.

Peg O' My Heart

 

Agnes Gooch: "Speedo won't let anyone out who can't do at least 180 words a minute. I'm over 200!"

Vera Charles: "No, you're not!"

 

 

Agnes Gooch: "Well, I think I'll just fix myself a Dr. Pepper!"

 

 

Agnes Gooch: "Spirits do the most horrible things to me! I'm not the same person!"

Auntie Mame: "What's wrong with that?"

 

 

 

 

PEGGY CASS

May 21, 1924 - March 8, 1999

Game show doyenne...

Guest star extraordinaire...

Gooch par excellence.

Coming Up Rose's What?

Ethel Merman in the original Broadway production of Gypsy, 1959

"They've nicknamed her husband the Lizard of Roz, and what they call Rosalind Russell I can't repeat -- but it does rhyme with 'witch,' and you'll find her sort in a kennel!" - Ethel Merman

Rosalind Russell in Gypsy (1962, Warner Bros.)

Goodness Geisha

Rosalind Russell in A Majority of One (1961, Warner Bros.)

Shirley MacLaine in My Geisha (1962, Paramount)

Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance in "The Ricardos Go to Japan" from The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1959)

Bathing Broads

With a gimlet and a pool boy both within reach, no doubt.

But, Darling...

...they're your Auntie Mame!

Miss Arden appears courtesy of Stephen Marshal Jones

And Then There Were Nun

Pick your favorite swingin' sister!

Debbie Reynolds in The Singing Nun (1966, MGM)

Diana Ross and the Supremes (with Ron Ely) on television's Tarzan (1968)

Rosalind Russell and Stella Stevens in Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968, Columbia)

Mary Tyler Moore in Change of Habit (1969, Universal)