* This story has been re-printed from an article for Current Everyone knows “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but a growing number of movie lovers...

Last October we covered Bella Lugosi and Boris Karloff — both foreign actors who found their way to Hollywood in the late 20s and early...

Lana Turner, 1948. Photo from Dr. Marco's Annex. When her relationship with Tyrone Power ended, Turner attempted to quickly move on. MGM...

Lana Turner’s greatest performance was the role of the movie star, and she was so good at it that no one could think of her as anything...

Bogart was married three times before he met and married Lauren Bacall. His second marriage was to stage actress Mary Philips who came to...

A young Bogart arrives in Hollywood circa 1930. Humphrey Bogart wasn’t always “Bogey.” His journey to legendary superstar was longer and...

The Life Magazine portrait, August 11, 1941, that became one of the most popular pin-ups for American soldiers fighting World War II....

Rita Hayworth famously said, “Men go to bed with Gilda, and wake up with me.” Who was the me behind “Gilda” and “The Lady from Shanghai?”...

Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald in The Merry Widow, 1934. Valentine’s Day is almost here, and we wrap our series on pre-Code men...

Happy 2022! Birthday girl Kay Francis is TCM’s Star of the Month. Francis was featured in Women of pre-Code last year, this is a great...

By Jennifer Kellow-Fiorini Boris Karloff in the 1930's Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt November 23, 1887, in London England....

Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in The Raven, 1935. Both Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff were foreigners in their 40s when they became famous...

Gable is easily the most famous of any actor we’ve talked about from the pre-Code era. But the “King of Hollywood,” who is mostly...

In the silent era, Lillian Gish proclaimed him the most beautiful man in movies. But by the time talkies arrived, Richard Barthelmess was...

Edward G. Robinson in the early 1930's. In the pre-Code era audiences loved personality types we would now call character actors. In the...

America in the early 1930’s required a different mindset to survive and thrive than the generation before. Young men lamented that their...

Urbane implies high cultivation and poise coming from wide social experience — debonair, suave, smooth, sophisticated. Urbane is a word...

Often referred to as “the King of pre-Code” and “The Magnificent Scoundrel,” Warren William made 20 films between 1931 and the...

James Cagney worked on stage as a dancer/actor before becoming part of a new group of stars who, in 1931, were experimenting and refining...

Left to right, Richard Barthelmess, James Cagney, and Clark Gable Although societal shifts for women from the teens through the 1920s and...