Hip Hooray For Hollywood

Its finally here the night of a thousand stars, the Oscars, the 85th annual Academy Awards. I absolutely love awards season, I love all the glamour and the pomp. Its all wonderfully frivolous and exciting. All the stars of the years biggest movies turn out in their finery to congratulate each other on their utter fabulousness So as the stars get ready for Hollywood's biggest night, here's a quick look at some of my favourite moments and more importantly dresses of the golden age of Hollywood.

Let's get things rolling with my very favourite starlet,  miss Audrey Hepburn .   Here she is winning best actress for her first film 'Roman Holiday ' in 1954, breathtaking in a floral Givenchy gown , she had come straight from staring in Ondine in Broadway and was still wearing her heavy stage make up. she was nominated another four times but never won again. she was awarded the Jean Hersholt humanitarian award posthumously in 1993.

Barbra Streisand was magnificent in these Scaasi evening pajamas  when she won for 'Funny Girl' in 1969 .  Well actually she tied with Katherine Hepburn which is pretty good company to be in.  she hadn't realized how see through the suit was until she hit the bright studio lights and she tripped going up the stairs to the stage but she made up for it by starting her speech with fabulous flair and the words  'hello gorgeous' her opening lines from the movie.

the tremendous Bette Davis winning for 'Jezebel' in 1939. I love how dramatic her gown is, it matches her  larger then life persona. This was her second win and she was nominated eleven times in total and in my opinion should have won all eleven.  She is fabled to have christened the academy awards statuette 'Oscar' after she remarked that it reminded her of her  of her uncle of the same name.

Speaking of dramatic outfits, I am Loving Bette in this outrageously over the top ensemble . the headpiece is beyond  gorgeous, the red lip, the divine decolletage, she is flawless. it takes colossal star power to pull focus from Brando and Grace Kelly who had both won and ms Davis was merely presenting and it could have only been the in comparable Bette.

I love this picture because after Audrey, Julie Andrews is my favorite actress of all time. here she is winning  her only Oscar for her first film Mary Poppins. there was uproar when Audrey Hepburn won the lead role in the film version of 'My Fair Lady' over Julie who had originated the role with great success on stage and and it was rumored that a bitter rivalry existed between the two women which was completely untrue, they were in fact great friends for many years.

I have always had an affinity towards Liza Minnelli, I always say she is the only woman besides me who understands  what its like having a famous and much loved singer for a Mother (just kidding mom hehe). Liza with a Z won her only Oscar for Caberet in 1972. she's so effortlessly beautiful in her buttermilk yellow ensemble by her friend and collaborator Halston.

One my favorite Hollywood men, the chairman of the board, Frank Sinatra won best supporting actor for his role in 'From Here to Eternity' in 1954. Sinatra, pictured here with his co star Donna Reed, was experiencing a period of decline in his career in the early 50's and fought hard for this part, winning the Oscar proved to be just the ting to put his career back on track.

Meryl Streep is simply exquisite and certainly one of the the greatest actresses of the modern era, this is apparent from her three Oscar wins and 17 nominations. her first win was for best supporting actress in 'Kramer versus Kramer' in 1979.

She won for Best Actress in 1983 for her heartbreaking performance in 'Sophie's choice'. She is glowing in this gold sequined gown while quite pregnant on her daughter Mamie. I'm excited to see her at tonight's ceremony, she is always so elegant.

Sidney Poitier is the most gorgeous Oscar winner of all time in my opinion, and has the most beautiful speaking voice of anyone ever really. He made history in 1963 when he became the first black person to ever win Best Actor for 'Lilies in the field', He was also awarded the honorary award in 2002 which was also the next year a black person, Denzel Washington, won Best Actor.

the inimitable Cher in a outlandish and fantastic get up designed by  Bob Mackie .  Cher  won est actress for moon struck in 1987.

so there you go a look back at Oscar's history, the red carpet coverage is starting, I'm giddy with anticipation i'm looking forward to seeing Bradley cooper and Jessica Chastain and eek hearing  Barbra Streisand preform. my predictions are Argo for best film, Spielberg for best director, Danial day Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence for the best actor awards and Anne Hathaway and Cristoph waltz for best supporting actor. oh and Django unchained for best screenplay. Here we go!!

As the song goes 'I love to cry at weddings, anybody's weddings.'

This is the wedding from the sound of music which I'm aware is not a real wedding but whatever!

 Ah Hollywood weddings, you have to love them, whether understated or outrageous they are always spectacular. Part of the reason I haven't been blogging aside from laziness is that I'm planning my wedding. Eek its all very lovely and exciting so I thought I would combine my two current favorite things weddings and old Hollywood so here's a little look at some of Hollywood's loveliest weddings before the days of lavish televised circus weddings that last 2 weeks (I'm looking at you Kim Kardashian.)

when you talk about Hollywood weddings you must of course talk about the grand dame of marriages, Elizabeth Taylor. Famously married a record eight times to seven men, Ms. Taylor was almost as famous for her tumultuous relationships as for acting. so here's a quick run through of some of her fabulous weddings and not so fabulous marriages.

she married  Conrad Hilton (Paris's great uncle) in a lavish ceremony staged by MGM may of 1950 . she filed for  divorce in January 1951 on the grounds of extreme mental cruelty from Hilton.

Her third marriage to mike Todd is the only one not to have ended in divorce sadly he died in a plane crash. I'm freaking over the hood and the fact that Debbie Reynolds and Eddie fisher are witnesses at the wedding because...

Eddie Fisher was husband number Four. and another hooded dress, I love this woman. this match didn't last long though

because Liz met Richard Burton. their famously tumultuous relationship is the stuff of legend and resulted in them being married and divorced twice.

La Liz wasn't the only serial marryer in Hollywood  though, it seems that those who stayed married long term were in the minority. here's a quick run of some of the lovely weddings that ended in divorce 

Ol blue eyes already on his second marriage of four to Ava Gardner who was on her third. he left his first wife childhood sweetheart and mother of his children, it was a huge scandal at the time. They were married for six years, another famously tumultuous relationship that fizzled out though Sinatra always hailed Ava as the love of his life.

and here's Frankie again with his third wife Mia Farrow. He was her first husband  of two but she was also famously in a relationship for many years with Woody Allen. Frank and Mia married in 1966, he was 51 she was 21. Their relationship was a barrage of game playing and battles for control. He cheated on her numerous times, she lobbed an ash tray at his head, he went bananas when she took rosemary's baby and she took off to an ashram in India to hang out with the Beatles  they divorced in 1968.

Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer married in 1954 in what can only be described as a fairy tale wedding in a garden in Switzerland. it has been said that Mel was very controlling and jealous of Audrey's success. they divorced in 1968 after 14 years. Audrey was devastated by the divorce, she felt like a failure. she was married and divorced once more but spent most of her final years in a relationship with the extremely handsome Robert Wolders

I love this photo of the luminous Marilyn Monroe at her third wedding to playwright Arthur miller. Marilyn's quest for love has been written about way too many times but she was married three times most famously to Joe DiMaggio and was romantically linked to everyone from actors to mobsters and of course the president of the united states.  she was married to miller from 1956 to 1961.

Ah Bogie and Bacall, was there ever a cooler couple than these two? they married in 1945 having met on the set of 'to have and have not' Bogart left his third wife to marry Lauren, they went on to have two children and were married relativity happily it would seem until his death in 1957.I really feel they would have stayed married had it not been for his death they seemed to be perfect for each other.  Bacall was also engaged to Frank Sinatra or a short time and went on to marry and divorce the actor Jason Robards

Mick and Bianca Jagger on their wedding day in 1971. they were the golden couple of the 70's and the studio 54 scene but the marriage ended in 1978 when Bianca filed for divorce on grounds of micks many infidelities. Mick is pretty much the definition of a Lothario, he has been linked to pretty much every woman you can think of  and even some men too. He was in a relationship with the model Jerry Hall from the 70's to the 90's, the couple married in a Hindu ceremony but the marriage was later annulled due to questions over the validity of the ceremony  Mick has seven children with four different women.

And now on to some of the more long lasting marriages, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman were married in 1958 and remained happily married until his death in 2008. The secret to their success seemed to be that they stayed away from the spotlight, making their home in Connecticut, also I think they were just crazy about each other which is pretty sweet.

And finally the wedding of the century, Hollywood's princess, Grace Kelly became genuine royalty when she married married Prince Rainier III of Monaco. they met in 1955 at the Cannes film festival and apparently when the time came for him to look for a wife he knew exactly who he wanted, the love story seems a little bit more of a business transaction then a romance but they remained married until Grace's tragic death in 1982 and Rainier never re-married. 

so there you have it folks being married in Hollywood is not an easy task but at least it gives us lots of gorgeous wedding photos to gawk at :)

here's the aformentioned song, from the musical sweet charity 

Saturday Swoon-Christopher Plummer

I Love Christopher Plummer. So I think we should take a moment an this sunny Saturday to swoon over him. Anybody who knows me knows my crazy obsession with the sound of music, more on that later, but one of the main reasons I love the movie so much is because of Captain Von Trapp. He starts out all gruff and mysterious, his eyes full of sadness but because of the love of a good women he reveals his sensitive and loving side that was buried, not very deeply it must be said, under the surface. Romantic or what?

The tall, dark, and handsome Canadian with his exotically indeterminable accent is certainly most famous for his role as the dashing Captain Von Trapp, a role he never relished, he started out as a Shakespearean theater actor and has starred in over 70 films. He has been experiencing a re birth of his career in the last decade. He won his first Oscar in 2012 for the film 'Beginners' becoming, at 82, the oldest person ever to win the award.

Isn't he fabulously elegant? I think so, he has aged so gracefully as well, he still has the twinkle in his eye. oh and he was the narrator of Madeleine, the cartoon of the little french school girl. He is the epitome of chic sophistication and that never goes out of style.

what a hunk!!

I absolutely love his voice, and I adored this cartoon as a kid.