MEMORIES OF MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS

Released on November 28, 1944, Meet Me in St. Louis remains a quintessential piece of classic Hollywood cinema, celebrating the charm, innocence, and emotional resonance of a bygone era. Directed by Vincente Minnelli, the film is set against the backdrop of the 1904 World's Fair and revolves around the Smith family, led by the doting patriarch, played by Leon Ames, and his four daughters, the most notable being Esther, portrayed by Judy Garland. It is through Esther's eyes that the audience experiences the ups and downs of family life, love, and the anticipation of the fair's opening.

Judy Garland, who was already a renowned star at the time, is often celebrated for her iconic role in the film. In Meet Me in St. Louis, Garland effortlessly blends vulnerability and strength, delivering unforgettable performances of classic songs like "The Trolley Song" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." In fact, Garland later remarked that she felt she was at her most beautiful in the film, a statement that resonates through the stunning publicity portraits taken to promote the movie.

The film’s lasting popularity can also be attributed to its ability to evoke nostalgia for a simpler time. The period costumes, grand set designs, and musical numbers are still seen as a testament to the grandeur of MGM's golden age. Additionally, the film's themes of family, love, and home have kept it beloved by generations of viewers. Judy Garland’s performance, paired with Minnelli's direction, elevated Meet Me in St. Louis into a timeless classic, ensuring its place in the hearts of audiences for years to come...

STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: BABE RUTH & LOU GEHRIG

Here is a touching photo of baseball legend Babe Ruth paying his respects to fellow baseball player Lou Gehrig. Lou died on June 2, 1941...

 

RIP: ROBERT REDFORD

Robert Redford, the dashing actor and Oscar-winning director who eschewed his status as a Hollywood leading man to champion causes close to his heart, has died, according to his publicist Cindi Berger, Chairman and CEO of Rogers and Cowan PMK.

He was 89.

“Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah–the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved. He will be missed greatly,” Berger said in a statement to CNN. “The family requests privacy.”

Known for his starring roles in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men,” Redford also directed award-winning films such as “Ordinary People” and “A River Runs Through It.”

His passion for the art of filmmaking led to his creation of the Sundance Institute, a nonprofit that supports independent film and theater and is known for its annual Sundance Film Festival.

Redford was also a dedicated environmentalist, moving to Utah in 1961 and leading efforts to preserve the natural landscape of the state and the American West.

Redford at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. Jemal Countess/Getty Images

Redford acted well into his later years, reuniting with Jane Fonda in the 2017 Netflix film “Our Souls at Night.” The following year, he starred in “The Old Man & the Gun” at age 82, a film he said would be his last – although he said he would not consider retiring.

“To me, retirement means stopping something or quitting something,” he told CBS Sunday Morning in 2018. “There’s this life to lead, why not live it as much as you can as long as you can?”

In October 2020, Redford voiced his concern about the lack of focus on climate change in the midst of devastating wildfires in the western United States, in an opinion piece he wrote for CNN.

David James Redford – the third of four children born to Robert Redford and former wife Lola Van Wagenen – had followed in his father’s footsteps as an activist, filmmaker and philanthropist.

Born in Santa Monica, California, near Los Angeles, in 1936, Redford’s father worked long hours as a milkman and an accountant, later moving the family to a larger home in nearby Van Nuys.

“I didn’t see him much,” Redford recalled of his father, on “Inside the Actor’s Studio” in 2005.

Because his family couldn’t afford a babysitter, Redford spent hours in the children’s section at the local library where he became fascinated with books on Greek and Roman mythology.

Yet Redford was hardly a model student.

“I had no patience … I was not inspired,” Redford recalled. “It was more interesting to me to mess around and to adventure beyond the parameters that I was growing up in.”

Drawn to arts and sports – and a life outside of sprawling Los Angeles – Redford earned a scholarship to play baseball at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1955. That same year, his mother died.

“She was very young, she wasn’t even 40,” he said.

Redford said his mother was “always very supportive (of my career)” — more so than his dad.

“My father came of age during the Depression and he was afraid to take chances … so he wanted the straight and narrow path for me, which I was just not meant to be on,” he said.  “My mother, no matter what I did, she was always forgiving and supportive and felt that I could do anything.

“When I left and went to Colorado and she died, I realized I never had a chance to thank her.”

Redford soon turned to drinking, lost his scholarship and eventually was asked to leave the university. He worked as a “roustabout” for the Standard Oil Company and saved his earnings to continue his art studies in Europe.

In 1959, Redford graduated from the academy and got his first acting role on an episode of “Perry Mason.” His acting career was “uphill from there,” he said.

His big acting break came in 1963, when he starred in Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” on Broadway – a role he would later reprise on the big screen with Jane Fonda.

Around this time, Redford married Lola Van Wagenen and started a family. His first child, Scott, died from sudden infant death syndrome just a few months after his birth in 1959. Shauna was born in 1960, David in 1962, and Amy in 1970.

Robert Redford working in Utah in 1969. John Dominis Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

As his acting career was taking off, Redford and his family moved to Utah in 1961 where he bought two acres of land for just $500 and built a cabin himself.

“I discovered how important nature was in my life, and I wanted to be where nature was extreme and where I thought it could maybe be everlasting,” he told CNN.

Redford made a name for himself as a leading man in 1969 when he starred opposite Paul Newman – already a major star – in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” The Western about a pair of outlaws won four Academy Awards.

Redford said he “will forever be indebted” to Newman, whom he credited with helping him get the role. The two actors had great on-screen chemistry, became lifelong friends and reunited in “The Sting” in 1973, which won the Academy Award for best picture.

Redford starred in a string of hit movies throughout the 1970s: “Jeremiah Johnson”; “The Way We Were,” co-starring Barbra Streisand; “The Great Gatsby”; and with Dustin Hoffman in 1976’s “All The President’s Men,” about the Watergate scandal.

Teaming up with director Sydney Pollack on “Jeremiah Johnson,” Redford fought with the studio to get the film made the way he wanted – a precursor to his career as a director and his support for independent filmmaking.

“It was a battle from the get-go,” Redford told “Inside The Actor’s Studio.” “They (the studio) said … ‘You’ve got $4 million, put it in the bank in Salt Lake City, you can shoot wherever you want, but that’s it. If it goes over, it comes out of your hide.’”

With spare dialogue and stunning scenery, the film tells the story of a Mexican War veteran who has left the battlefield to survive as a trapper in the American West.

"All the President's Men" inspired a new wave of journalists in 1976 when Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman portrayed Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they uncovered the Watergate scandal. 

It was released more than three years after it was made because, according to Redford, the studio’s sales chief thought the film was “so unusual” that it wouldn’t find an audience.

“Jeremiah Johnson” ended up grossing nearly $45 million. It wasn’t the only time Redford’s passion for the art of filmmaking put him at odds with the studios that funded his work.

“The sad thing you have to work against, as a filmmaker, is held opinions about what works or doesn’t work,” Redford said. “Sports movies don’t work, political movies don’t work, movies about the press don’t work – so I’ve done three of them.”

Redford made his directing debut in 1980 with “Ordinary People,” a drama about an unhappy suburban family which earned the Academy Award for Best Picture and another one for him as best director. He continued starring in hit films such as “The Natural” in 1984, which tapped into his passion for baseball, and 1993’s “An Indecent Proposal,” which paired him with a much younger Demi Moore.

He later directed the 1993 film “A River Runs Through It,” which won three Academy Awards, 1994’s “Quiz Show” and “The Horse Whisperer” in 1998, which he also starred in.

Ruggedly handsome, Redford was often cast as the romantic leading man in films such as “Out of Africa” in 1985, but he wasn’t always comfortable with the label and feared being typecast.

“I didn’t see myself the way others saw me and I was feeling kind of trapped because I couldn’t go outside the box of … good-looking leading man,” he said. “It was very flattering, but it was feeling restrictive … so it took many years to break loose of that.”

STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: BETTE DAVIS

Regarding this photo from circa 1954, shows Bette Davis with her husband, Gary Merrill, and their children, B.D., Margot, and Michael, capturing a moment of togetherness amidst a time when Davis was a Hollywood powerhouse. Her journey through marriage and motherhood reflects the turbulence of her life beyond the screen, showing a woman who navigated personal challenges with resilience...

HISTORY BREAK: REMEMBER 9/11

Never forget this.

 
On 9/11, just three minutes before United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower, passenger Brian Sweeney called his wife Julie one last time.

“Jules, this is Brian. Listen, I’m on an airplane that’s been hijacked. If things don’t go well, and it’s not looking good, I just want you to know I absolutely love you. I want you to do good, go have good times. Same to my parents and everybody, and I just totally love you, and I’ll see you when you get there.”

Julie missed the call while teaching her high school class that morning. She only heard his final message when she returned home and learned he was gone.

A husband’s last words. A love that endures forever. We remember.

RIP: POLLY HOLLIDAY

One of the last main stars on the television series Alice has died. Polly Dean Holliday was born on July 2, 1937, in Jasper, Ala., a small-town northwest of Birmingham, and grew up in Childersburg, a small town southeast of it. She was the daughter of Ernest Sullivan Holliday, a truck driver, and Velma (Cain) Holliday. At Childersburg High School, Polly was voted most talented in her senior class. She majored in piano at Alabama College for Women (now the University of Montevallo) but also appeared in a few productions with the school’s theater group. After graduating in 1959, she worked for a while as a music teacher. 

At Florida State University, where she enrolled to study music education, she began spending time with drama students and ended up joining the Asolo Repertory Theater in Sarasota in 1962.When she did leave for New York, she began her career on the stage. In 1972, she appeared with Ruby Dee in “Wedding Band,” a drama by Alice Childress about an interracial romance, at the Public Theater.

It became the vehicle for her screen debut, too, when the play was adapted for an ABC television movie in 1974. The Times critic John J. O’Connor found the film “powerful, moving and occasionally very funny.”

She later did a favor for Mr. Hoffman when he needed guidance in playing an actor pretending to be an actress in the 1982 film “Tootsie.” His female character-within-a-character, Dorothy Michaels, had a silky Southern accent and, like Ms. Holliday’s Flo Castleberry, a frightening temper. Ms. Holliday returned to Broadway three times. She first co-starred with Jean Stapleton in the comedy “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1986). After “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” she was in a 1994 revival of William Inge’s “Picnic,” playing the heroine’s overly protective mother.

But television always beckoned. Ms. Holliday did six episodes of the soap opera “Search for Tomorrow” in 1974 as a character identified only as “prison inmate leader.”

After the better part of four seasons on “Alice” (the show continued without her until 1985), she starred in “Flo,” her own comedy spinoff, in which her character bought a run-down bar in her Texas hometown. The show lasted 29 episodes in the 1980-81 season.

Ms. Holliday appeared in more than a dozen television movies, among them “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (1976), “You Can’t Take It With You” (1979) and “The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story” (1983). She was in an equal number of series, including “The Golden Girls” (1986), “Amazing Stories” (1986), “The Equalizer” (1988) and “Homicide: Life on the Streets” (1996).

On “The Client” (1995-96), she was the supportive mother and roommate of a recently divorced lawyer (JoBeth Williams). On “Home Improvement,” she was Tim Allen’s slim, sassy mother-in-law, in five different seasons between 1993 and 1999.

And Ms. Holliday was surprisingly versatile in feature films. In “All the President’s Men” (1976), she was a Florida investigator’s very protective secretary; in “Mrs. Doubtfire” (1993), Robin Williams and Sally Field’s annoying next-door neighbor; in “Moon Over Parador,” Jonathan Winters’s excitable wife; and in “The Parent Trap” (1998), a fearless camp director who could handle the toughest discipline problems, even with two Lindsay Lohans.

Her last film appearance was in the 2010 drama “Fair Game” as the concerned mother of the outed C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame.

She left no immediate survivors.

Ms. Holliday felt affection for her “Alice” character, but she often pointed out that the line “Kiss my grits” was hardly an authentic regionalism.

“There was nothing Southern or real about that expression,” she told The Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 2003. “It was pure Hollywood.”

The characterization, however, was heartfelt. “She was a Southern woman you see in a lot of places,” Ms. Holliday said of Flo in the same interview. “Not well educated, but very sharp, with a sense of humor and a resolve not to let life get her down.”

THE LAST MOVIE OF JACKIE GLEASON

Rumor has it that director Garry Marshall would not go ahead with the making of "Nothing in Common" (1986) without the inclusion of Jackie Gleason. In poor health, Gleason had grown tired of filmmaking, and wished to retire from the business. After several attempts to get him on board, Marshall finally called Gleason on the phone and insisted that if he didn't do this film, that the last film he would be remembered for was the box-office bomb "Smokey and the Bandit Part 3" (1983). Gleason immediately accepted the offer on the condition that this would be his last acting role. In Marshall's 2012 memoir, "My Happy Days in Hollywood," he credits Ray Stark with asking Gleason the question about if he wanted "Smokey and the Bandit 3" being how he would be remembered.

Marshall described this picture as a humorous, poignant "exploration of how much we owe our parents.'' It is also, he agreed, a natural progression from his prior comedy, "The Flamingo Kid" (1984). That film starred Matt Dillon as a cabana boy at a 1960's beach club, awed by a flashy, flamboyant car dealer, played by Richard Crenna, at the expense of his lower-middle-class father, played by Hector Elizondo. "'The Flamingo Kid' was set in an age of comparative innocence, when notions of thrift, hard work and a good education were challenged by the values of the get-rich-quick society," said Marshall. "There's been a lot of upward mobility in the time between the stories. The family relationship in 'Nothing in Common' is more complex. It's much more of a dramatic comedy."

In a 2006 DGA interview, Marshall spoke about how an observation from Gleason in a key scene resulted in a turning point in both his and Tom Hanks' careers: "We had a hospital scene. Now Tom is a comic guy and Jackie Gleason is comical, and I come from comedy, so it was a very serious scene. So we weren't getting it and finally Jackie Gleason said, 'You know what's wrong? We're all doing hospital room jokes,' so he says, 'We must have an exorcism and free this room of all humor.' So the three of us like idiots ran around doing every bedpan, nurse, hospital joke ever done in the history of comedy and finally Jackie says, 'It's gone. It's all gone. Now we can do the serious scene.' So, now another director would say, 'Are they crazy? I knew exactly what he was saying.' And we did it and it's the one scene where Tom Hanks actually cries in the scene. Something he's never done before that, he was doing 'Bachelor Party' (1984) in his underwear, and this was a very important picture to Tom and to me because we both did a film that was a little more serious and a little more poignant and it got us into another category."

Gleason was seriously ill with colon cancer, liver cancer, thromboses hemorrhoids, diabetes and phlebitis throughout production. One evening during filming, he admitted to his daughter that he only had a short time to live. He died nearly one year after the film's release, long enough to personally view the completed film which he was said to have enjoyed very much....

TINA FEY AND MEAN GIRLS

Tina Fey read Rosalind Wiseman's "Queen Bees and Wannabes" and called "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels to suggest it could be turned into a film. Michaels contacted Paramount Pictures, who purchased the rights to the book. As the book is nonfiction, Fey wrote the plot of "Mean Girls" (2004) from scratch, borrowing elements from her own high school experience and her impressions of Evanston Township High School, upon which the film's fictional "North Shore High School" is based.

Lindsay Lohan first read for Regina George, but the casting team felt she was closer to what they were looking for in the actress who played Cady, and since Lohan feared the "mean girl" role would harm her reputation, she agreed to play the lead. Rachel McAdams was cast as Regina because Fey felt McAdams being "kind and polite" made her perfect for such an evil-spirited character. Amanda Seyfried also read for Regina, and the producers instead suggested her for Karen due to Seyfried's "spacey and daffy sense of humor". Both Lacey Chabert and Daniel Franzese were the last actors tested for their roles. Lizzy Caplan was at first considered too pretty for the part of Janis, for which director Mark Waters felt a "Kelly Osbourne-like actress" was necessary, but Caplan was picked for being able to portray raw emotion. Fey wrote two roles based on fellow "SNL" alumni, Amy Poehler (whom Fey thought the producers would not accept because of being too young to portray a teenager's mother) and Tim Meadows, and the cast ended up with a fourth veteran of the show, Ana Gasteyer.

In an interview about the film, Fey noted, "Adults find it funny. They are the ones who are laughing. Young people watch it like a reality show. It's much too close to their real experiences so they are not exactly guffawing." Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "'Fetch' may never happen, but 2004's eminently quotable movie is still one of the sharpest high school satires ever. Which is pretty grool, if you ask me!" In 2006, Entertainment Weekly also named it the twelfth best high school film of all time, explaining: "There was a time when Lindsay Lohan was best known for her acting rather than her party-hopping. Showcasing Lindsay Lohan in arguably her best role to date, this Tina Fey-scripted film also boasts a breakout turn by Rachel McAdams as evil queen bee Regina George (Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen! It's not going to happen!). While 'Mean Girls' is technically a comedy, its depiction of girl-on-girl cattiness stings incredibly true."

A 2018 Broadway musical version of the film was adapted into a film version in 2024. Fey and Meadows reprised their characters of Ms. Norbury and Mr. Duvall respectively 20 years after the original film...

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD WEDDINGS

To commerate my 21st wedding anniversary today, I wanted to take a look at some classic Hollywood weddings...

Dick Powell & Joan Blondell, 1936

Frank Sinatra & Mia Farrow, 1966

Angela Lansbury & Peter Shaw, 1949

Audrey Hepburn, 1954

Judy Garland & Vincente Minnelli, 1945

Lucille Ball, 1940

ROBERT SHAW AND HIS JAWS SAGA

Robert Shaw wasn't that impressed with a script he received and read, and even confided to a friend, Hector Elizondo, "They want me to do a movie about this big fish. I don't know if I should do it or not." When Elizondo asked why Shaw had reservations he mentioned that he'd never heard of the director and didn't like the title, "Jaws".

However, the 1975 film, while it was the first movie to gross more than $100 million worldwide that Shaw had ever been part of, he didn't make a cent from it because of the taxes he had to pay from working in the United States, Canada and Ireland.

Shaw ad-libbed the "Here lies the body of Mary Lee" line after director Steven Spielberg prompted him to give Brody's wife (on the dock) a hard time. Asked later where he quoted it from, as it would require getting a license and release from the author to be used in the film, Shaw said that was unlikely, as it was off an old grave marker in Ireland.

Shaw sang the song "Spanish Ladies" while at the dock with Hooper and Brody, loading the boat to catch the shark. The song is a traditional British shanty, not a New England one. However, Shaw changed the lyrics from "for we have received orders, for to sail to old England..." to "for we've received orders for to sail to old Boston..." Shaw who was born and raised in England was an accomplished novelist and playwright, and may have become familiar with the tune while working as a teacher in the fishing town of Saltburn by the Sea.

Though respected as an actor, Shaw's trouble with alcohol was a frequent source of tension during filming. In later interviews, Roy Scheider described his co-star as "a perfect gentleman whenever he was sober. All he needed was one drink and then he turned into a competitive son-of-a-b!tch." 

According to Carl Gottlieb's book "The Jaws Log," Shaw was having a drink between takes, at which one point he announced, "I wish I could quit drinking." Much to the surprise and horror of the crew, Richard Dreyfuss simply grabbed Shaw's glass and tossed it into the ocean. When it came time to shoot the infamous USS Indianapolis Scene, Shaw attempted to do the monologue while intoxicated as it called for the men to be drinking late at night. Nothing in the take could be used. A remorseful Shaw called Steven Spielberg late that night and asked if he could have another try. The next day of shooting, Shaw's electrifying performance was done in one take...