Gail Russell was one of the most strikingly vulnerable screen presences of the 1940s and that vulnerability was her defining feature as well as her curse. Discovered by Paramount as a teenager she went on to have a string of successful films in the early 1940s including Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour, The Uninvited and Angel and the Badman, almost always playing the sensitive, fragile woman. She was a very distinctive actress in that respect. Behind the scenes though she was extremely shy and anxious and that anxiety developed into a severe alcoholism which in turn began to seriously damage her career. Her screen appearances became increasingly infrequent from the mid-50s, and her career was effectively over by that time. That was the background to the very sad final act.

Hollywood history is full of people whose names have been on the marquee at the theatre. Margaret Herrick wasn't one of them. She never acted in a film, she never directed one, and she never stood on the podium at the Oscars with a statuette in her hand. What she did was to take the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from a fledgling trade body to a major international organization and in the process to create the bedrock of what is now one of the most important archives of motion picture history in the world. Today, of course, thousands of researchers will know her name as they go into the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills. The vast majority of them will have no idea what a remarkable woman she was.

Long before Hollywood and Highland became one of the world's most famous intersections, strawberry fields, farmhouses, dirt roads, and scattered ranches lay beneath the foothills. Among the people who watched that landscape change was Mary Penman Moll, a schoolteacher who became a landowner, developer, businesswoman and civic figure during the years when Hollywood was still becoming a town. Her name is not nearly as familiar today as those of Daeida Wilcox Beveridge or H. J. Whitley, but portions of the Hollywood she helped create remain underfoot every day.

To movie audiences of the 1930s and 1940s, Wallace Beery was one of Hollywood’s most dependable stars. He was big, rumpled, gravel-voiced and rough around the edges, the sort of actor who could play a washed-up boxer, a pirate, a sailor, a crook or a blustering old reprobate and still somehow win the audience over. MGM understood exactly how to use him. His characters were often crude, selfish or dangerous at first, but underneath there was usually a sentimental heart waiting to emerge. Offscreen, the picture was considerably less flattering.

Before Los Angeles had the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, before costumes and props were considered artifacts of popular culture worth saving, Harry Crocker had a brilliant idea. The tourists had already begun arriving in Hollywood in the 1920s, peeking through studio gates and milling around film premieres, dropping to their knees on Hollywood Boulevard to press their hands and feet into casts made by movie stars at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Harry Crocker knew what they wanted. They wanted to get closer to the movies—to see something real from the otherwise magical world just beyond the gate. In the summer of 1928, Crocker decided to give it to them.

Hollywood Blvd was very much the look of a movie premiere tonight on October 13, 2026, with the crowd gathered outside the El Capitan Theatre under a marquee for the world premiere of Whalefall. The entrance was all blue/green sea imagery, there were barricades on the sidewalk, and the crowd was moving towards the old theatre as people stopped to watch. It was the perfect setting for a film whose whole premise is spectacle. Whalefall is a survival thriller about a young man being swallowed by a sperm whale and having to fight his way out before he runs out of oxygen.

R.J. Mitte was only 14 when he was cast as Walter White Jr. on Breaking Bad. The role that made him famous in the long term was far more significant than simply a successful TV job. Mitte (who had cerebral palsy) brought a realness to the part that was still pretty rare on American TV at the time. Over the next 20 years he became an actor, a producer, a model and a very vocal advocate for people with disabilities, using his platform to challenge the barriers that Hollywood often puts in the way of disabled performers. He died on October 12th, 2026, in Brownsville, Texas. He was 34.

The news surrounding Tom Cruise’s new film Digger has not been kind. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the dark, satirical comedy arrived with a massive budget, one of the world’s biggest stars, and the prestige of an Oscar-winning filmmaker. Yet its opening weekend was dismal: about $8 million in North America and $20 million worldwide, against a production budget reported at roughly $160 million to $180 million, plus an estimated $100 million in marketing. Reviews were sharply divided, audience reaction was weak, and the film earned a C+ CinemaScore. By almost any conventional measure, Digger has opened as a major financial disappointment. But box office is not the same thing as posterity.

More than a hundred years after Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally murdered in their house in Fall River, almost every part of Lizzie Borden's life has been examined, explored in detail, and given a dramatic portrayal. The most interesting incident occurred many years after her acquittal in 1893, when she established a close friendship with Nance O’Neil, who was one of the most well-known actresses on the American stage. Even though this friendship only continued for a few years, it caused speculation at the time and has since become a major aspect of the debate about Lizzie's private life and sexuality.

Long before Hollywood mail arrived in sackfuls addressed to movie stars, fan clubs, and motion-picture studios, it was sorted inside a little wooden hotel at the corner of a dirt road. The woman behind that early postal counter was Mary Maria Sackett, a pioneer who arrived in Hollywood before there was much of a Hollywood at all and lived long enough to tell Groucho Marx about it on national television.

Moviegoers have plenty to choose from this week as Hollywood serves up a mixture of social drama, supernatural horror, Western adventure, crime thrillers, and independent films. The major releases arrive Friday, October 9, with several smaller productions and classic-film revivals rounding out the schedule. Whether you're looking for a contemporary story about the dangers of social media, a good old-fashioned Western, or a frightening experience appropriate for the Halloween season, there's something on the marquee.

Some memoirs are written about rock-and-roll celebrities. Some are written about the people who hung around them and learned how the game was played. I Am Johnny Stark: My Rock and Roll Memoir, by Giovanni and Anthony Sticco, falls under the latter. It tells how one man kept trying despite many disappointments. Published in 2026 by Hollywood Tower Productions, it tells the story of Johnny Stark, who faced hardship, poverty, and family issues while trying to make it in the music business.