Little Darlings (1980) Dir. By Ronald F. Maxwell

“The big job in one’s life, it seems to me, is finding out what is important to you and what isn’t important. It’s a major tragedy to race after things you neither want or need.”

Garbo got a kick out of sporting turtlenecks at a time when only jockeys and prizefighters wore them, and she was the first film star, followed by Katharine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich, to liberate women from skirts. Knowing observers slipped innuendo into their reports of Garbo and Dietrich’s preference for masculine styles. Vanity Fair pictured the Swede and the German, in 1932, under the headline “Both Members of the Same Club,” implying more than their mutual fondness for men’s suits and slouch hats.

Women who spurned skirts were not only violating taboos at the time, but breaking laws; in Paris in the twenties, a permis de travestissement was required of any female wearing a man’s suit. Mores were not much more relaxed on Hollywood Boulevard. “Garbo in Pants!” shouted a wire-photo caption.

“Innocent by standers gasped in amazement to see Mercedes de Acosta and Garbo in pants pretty much managed to go Where she pleased (and, perversely, she didn’t seem to mind the extra attention her fashion preferences brought her).

One night in 1928 Bill Frye slipped her into Chasen’s by rolling her trousers up beneath her overcoat, which she wore to the table. “We had already booked the reservation,” says Frye, “and when I saw what she was wearing I called the restaurant and told them I was bringing Miss Garbo to dinner and could she please come in slacks. They said no, she could not. I asked, ‘What if you put us to the right, just as we come in the door?’ They still said no, so we played our little trick.”

Greta Garbo striding swiftly along… dressed in men’s clothes.” A few days later, MGM sent out a story under Garbo’s name, in which she apologized for inflicting her “trousered attitude” on hostesses, escorts, and maitres d’.

Greta Garbo in The Single Standard (1929)

Sidney Poitier and Diahann Carroll in Paris Blues (1961), dir. Martin Ritt

Good dialogue simply isn’t enough to explain all the infinite gradations of a character. It’s behavior—it’s what’s going on behind the lines.

The fact I’ll never be able to read all the books I want to read is crushing me

James Dean as Youth at Soda Fountain (uncredited) Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952) dir. Douglas Sirk

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"Mother's connection with her fans was special. On the whole, their devotion to her, even when the headlines were unflattering, didn't waver. In fact, her ups and downs seemed to endear her to them all the more. They saw that she had her problems, too. There were some stars that seemed unreal, but for all her glamour, Mother retained an approachable side that her fans sensed. I think she was seen by them as Cinderella, who through a combination of luck and beauty of face and form, landed in movies. These qualities, combined with her personality, were embraced by the public and produced an enduring star.

"For her part, Mother respected her fans and recognized that the public makes a star. From the time she was very young, she appreciated the fan letters sent to her from people all over the world. In the beginning she read and answered as many pieces of mail as she could herself, but it quickly got out of hand and had to be managed by studio personnel. During a nine-month period in 1944 in which MGM monitored the fan letter flow to each of the stars, Mother and Judy Garland were shown to be ahead of the rest by far, each receiving close to 200,000 letters. After she left the studio, Mother hired a personal secretary for the first time and she dedicated a certain part of every day to signing photos, reading the mail, and dictating responses to her secretary. She took this very seriously. There were rare occasions when she was scared by a bizarre fan, but more commonly, there were special fans with whom she became comfortable enough to strike up regular correspondence, or even make telephone friends." -Cheryl Crane

LANA TURNER in THE YOUNGEST PROFESSION — 1943

I've been just a big sentimental fool. It's a tendency I have. Bette Davis as Charlotte Vale in Now, Voyager (1942) dir. Irving Rapper

“Dear mind, stop thinking so much. I need sleep.”

— Unknown