When They Were Making It

Clara Bow: Hollywood's Original 'It Girl' — The Roaring Twenties, Paramount Superstardom, and the Scandals That Changed Everything

She was the face of the Roaring Twenties, Hollywood's original It Girl, and one of the biggest box-office stars of the silent era. Then the headlines stopped being about

Alfred Hitchcock, Part 3: The End of an Era — Psycho, The Birds, and a Changing Hollywood

With Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock bet his own money on a low-budget shocker — and changed Hollywood forever. What followed would bring some of his biggest hits, his most trou

Alfred Hitchcock, Part 2: Building a Golden Age — Grace Kelly, Vertigo, and the Road to Psycho

When Alfred Hitchcock's first bid for independence failed, he pivoted — and began a career-defining decade that would bring some of his most celebrated films, transform h

Alfred Hitchcock, Part 1: Becoming the Master of Suspense — Fear, Power, and the Fight for Control

Before he became the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock had to start somewhere. He started in a British film industry struggling to survive — and in a fight for control

Fay Wray & King Kong (1933): The Making of the Original Scream Queen — RKO, Damsels in Distress, and Hollywood's Impossible Spectacle

The first in our October Halloween series: four weeks of classic Hollywood's darker, stranger, and more monstrous stories. Fay Wray was already one of Hollywood's busies

Edward G. Robinson: Hollywood's Literal OG — Little Caesar, the Blacklist Era, and the Man Behind the Movie Gangster

Edward G. Robinson helped invent the modern movie gangster. As Rico Bandello in Little Caesar, he made the short, sharp-eyed criminal not only the centre of a Hollywood p

Judy Garland's A Star Is Born (1954): Hollywood's Most Complicated Comeback — A Fragile Icon, Studio Butchering, and an Infamous Oscar Upset

By 1950, MGM was done with Judy Garland — and so, it seemed, was Hollywood. A Star Is Born was the film that was supposed to change all of that. After a devastating brea

Veronica Lake: The Making and Unmaking of a Movie Star — Film Noir Stardom, a Fallen-Star Story, and the Woman Behind It All

Veronica Lake was one of the most unforgettable faces of 1940s Hollywood: blonde, beautiful, elusive, with a curtain of hair falling across one eye. Paramount turned that

Charlie Chaplin, Part 2: The War Against Hollywood's Most Famous Man — Private Scandals, Political Persecution, and American Exile

This is Part 2 of our two-part series on Charlie Chaplin. At the height of his silent-film power, Charlie Chaplin was one of the most famous and successful people in the

Charlie Chaplin, Part 1: The Making of the World's Greatest Comedian — Victorian Poverty, Silent Superstardom, and a Troubling Private Life

This is Part 1 of our two-part series on Charlie Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin, one of the greatest icons of silent cinema and film comedy, built his legend on making the wor

Shirley Temple: Hollywood's Most Famous Child Star — Depression-Era Stardom, the Studio System, and an Extraordinary Second Act

Shirley Temple was the most famous child star Hollywood had ever seen — a six-year-old who became America's biggest box-office attraction, helped carry Twentieth Century-

Dorothy Dandridge, Part 2: Hollywood's First Black Leading Lady — Island in the Sun, Porgy and Bess, and the Promise Hollywood Couldn't Keep

By 1955, Dorothy Dandridge had done what Hollywood once seemed determined to make impossible — become a genuine leading lady, carry a major studio picture, and earn a Bes

Dorothy Dandridge, Part 1: A Star of Her Own Making — Baptism by Show Business, Carmen Jones, and a Historic Oscar Nomination

Dorothy Dandridge was one of the most electrifying talents Hollywood ever tried to contain — a trailblazing performer who would become the first Black woman nominated for

Sunset Boulevard (1950): Hollywood's Autopsy — Billy Wilder, Gloria Swanson, and the Film That Shook an Industry

In 1949, Billy Wilder sat inside a theatre in Evanston, Illinois, and watched his new film, Sunset Boulevard, fall apart in front of its first audience. Wilder had made

Mae West: The Most Dangerous Woman in Hollywood — Sex, Censorship, and the Star Who Redefined the Movies

Mae West shook up Depression-era Hollywood with a persona unlike anything American audiences had seen before — sexually confident, unapologetically funny, and always in c

Marlon Brando, Part 3: The Final Act — The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris, Apocalypse Now, and the Death of a Legend

By 1970, Hollywood had decided Marlon Brando was finished. He had gone more than a decade without a major hit. His films lost money. His reputation had become almost imp

Marlon Brando, Part 2: The Wilderness Years — Guys and Dolls, Mutiny on the Bounty, and the Road to The Godfather

By the end of the 1950s, Marlon Brando had everything he had spent his career fighting for. An Oscar. Money. Power. His own production company. And the freedom to make fi

Marlon Brando, Part 1: The Early Years — A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and the Oscar That Changed Everything

On December 3, 1947, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York, a twenty-three-year-old actor in a torn T-shirt walked onto a Broadway stage — and American acting was ne

Lana Turner: The Sweater Girl Who Became MGM's Most Glamorous Star — Scandal, Survival, and a Very Hollywood Murder

On Good Friday, 1958, a man lay dead on a pink bedroom floor in Beverly Hills — a severed aorta, almost no blood, a knife with no fingerprints in the bathroom sink, and t

Audrey Hepburn & Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961): How Hollywood Rewrote Holly Golightly — Truman Capote, Givenchy, and the Making of a Style Icon

By 1958, Truman Capote had written something he knew would cause trouble. A heroine who danced along the edge of prostitution. An ending that refused resolution. A charac