For many childhoods spent watching Disney films and programming, Tinker Bell has always been this twinkling icon of magic, childhood, and whimsy. She’s fluttered across television screens, dusted pixie dust over Disney’s logoed castle, and solidified her stance as one of the most recognizable cartoon characters of all time. But behind Disney’s legendary fairy was a woman who used her vivacity, elegance, and spirit to help shape Tinker Bell into a character audiences love. Actress, dancer, radio star, and author Margaret Kerry, who served as Disney’s real-life visual reference for Tinker Bell, passed away June 11, 2026, in Wilmington, North Carolina. She was 97 years old and had been fighting lung cancer. Margaret Kerry’s death concludes a Hollywood career that spanned from films of the Golden Age to the rise of Disney.

On June 28, 1970, Hollywood Boulevard hosted an event that many city officials had tried hard to prevent. For the first time, gay men and lesbians marched openly, legally, and with pride down a major American street, demanding dignity, equality, and recognition. Today, Pride parades take place in cities worldwide and attract millions. But in 1970, the idea of a public gay parade was so controversial that Los Angeles officials opposed it at every turn. That it happened at all stands as one of California’s most remarkable civil rights victories.

After several weeks of modest releases, moviegoers finally have a weekend packed with variety. Science fiction, action, psychological suspense, camp comedy, and giant-monster mayhem all arrive in theaters, offering something for nearly every taste. The biggest attraction is undoubtedly Steven Spielberg's long-awaited return to large-scale science fiction, but several smaller releases may prove just as interesting depending on what kind of movie experience you're seeking. Here's a look at what's opening this weekend and whether it's worth your hard-earned ticket money.

Long before Hollywood acknowledged queer identity, addiction, and sexual freedom, Pepi Lederer lived dangerously and restlessly at the center of one of its most glamorous and scandalous circles. Beautiful, reckless, and charismatic but emotionally adrift, Pepi moved through the lavish world of Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst like a bright flame—driven, searching, and ultimately self-destructive. Her short life brimmed with privilege, wild parties, forbidden romances, painful addiction, and tragedy, ending in a shocking suicide that sent tremors through the Hearst empire in 1935.

Some actors always seem just out of reach, not quite forgotten but caught between major fame and cult status. Steve Cochran spent years in that middle ground. If you bring up his name to casual movie fans, they might not know it, but classic film lovers instantly picture his dark eyes, sly grin, broad shoulders, and the dangerous energy that made him one of Hollywood’s most convincing villains in the late 1940s and 1950s. He looked like trouble, and by most accounts, he often was.

There are certain actors I will watch in almost anything. Allison Janney is one of them. Frankly, I would watch her read the proverbial phone book and probably come away entertained. She possesses that increasingly rare quality among actors: the ability to make even ordinary dialogue sound like something worth listening to. Fortunately, Miss You, Love You, HBO/Max's intimate new drama written and directed by Jim Rash, gives her far more to work with than a phone book. It gives her grief, anger, regret, loneliness, and a mountain of dialogue, and Janney makes every moment count.

Hollywood has long been interested in politics, but sometimes the roles are reversed. Every so often, a performer leaves the stage to try something even harder than entertaining: leading a community. Sometimes, these efforts work out well. Other times, they show that being popular and being a good leader are not always the same.

In every era, Hollywood has had someone who claims to know all its secrets. Not actual bodies, but the hidden truths that shaped the industry. Secrets built careers, held marriages together, and cost studios a lot to keep quiet. For decades, the biggest secret was that classic Hollywood was much more sexually diverse and complex than the public ever realized.

The first weekend of June brings a surprisingly diverse lineup to movie theaters, offering audiences everything from sword-and-sorcery spectacle and horror-comedy nostalgia to heartfelt musical drama and thought-provoking thrillers. Whether you're looking for a summer blockbuster, a laugh-filled escape, or something a little more offbeat, this week's releases provide a variety of options for moviegoers eager to beat the heat and settle into a theater seat.

If Louis B. Mayer built the MGM dream factory, Adrian was the one who decided how it looked. More than any actor, director, or producer, Adrian shaped Hollywood glamour during its Golden Age. The broad-shouldered Joan Crawford look, Greta Garbo's sharp elegance, Jean Harlow's smooth sophistication, Katharine Hepburn's tailored style, and even Dorothy's ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz all came from the mind of one man: Gilbert Adrian Greenburg, known simply as Adrian. For over a decade, his credit, "Gowns by Adrian," became as familiar to moviegoers as the stars themselves. Still, Adrian's story is also one of many queer stories that were visible in Hollywood but rarely spoken about openly.

June is Gay Pride Month, so social media fills up with rainbow banners, old studio photos, and claims that almost every glamorous star from Hollywood’s golden age was “secretly queer.” Some of these stories are true, some are wishful thinking, and some miss the real reasons why certain classic stars became gay icons.

Today, on June 1, 2026, people around the world will remember the 100th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's birth. Even a hundred years after Norma Jeane Baker was born in a charity ward at Los Angeles County Hospital, her face is still one of the most famous in history. Anniversaries like this encourage us to look past the myths and see the real person. Before she became Marilyn Monroe, the movie star and cultural icon, she was a vulnerable girl facing a childhood filled with instability, foster homes, absent parents, and time at the Los Angeles Orphans Home Society. To truly understand the woman who fascinated the world, we need to look back at the child she once was.