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Ava Gardner, wardrobe stills for On the Beach, 1959 (pt.2) Costumes designed by Fontana Sisters

Rebecca (1940)

Natural beauty

Jean Harlow, publicity portrait for “China Seas”, 1935. Jean’s hair had started to break and fall out after years of peroxide treatments just prior to making this movie, requiring her to wear a wig during production.

Audrey shot her songs to the tracks she had recorded, but producer Jack Warner was unhappy with her singing. At his insistence, studio musical director Ray Heinsdorf hired a dubber, Marni Nixon, a classically trained singer who had previously provided vocals for Deborah Kerr in The King and I (1956) and Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961). Hepburn was devastated when director George Cukor broke the news to her. Hepburn was heartbroken, and the studio tried to soften the blow by telling the press that Nixon had only done half of the singing. That only triggered a public protest from the singer’s husband, leading to the revelation that Nixon’s contribution was closer to 95 percent.

Greta Garbo in Queen Christina (1933)

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, To Have and Have Not, 1944

Marlene Dietrich in Paris, 1950s.

James Cagney and Gloria Stuart in Here Comes the Navy, 1934

Cary Grant in The Last Outpost, 1935.  This is the only film in which he sports a mustache.

Marilyn Monroe at the premiere of East of Eden, 1955.

Marilyn Monroe photographed by Anthony Beauchamp.

March 15, 1956.