The Academy Awards are tonight! Hollywood Awards Season has always been my Superbowl (being forced to watch sports is my idea of cruel and unusual punishment), so I always get excited for this time of year and all of the great movies that are on tv. The stories, the costumes (oh, the costumes), the drama...both in front of and behind the scenes.
My love for movies and celebrity gossip began with my paternal grandmother when I was a little girl. I'd spend the night at her house and we would bake sugar cookies and read through her old Golden Age of Hollywood books like "LIFE Goes to the Movies". I loved looking at the pictures of the Classic Hollywood stars, but the stories that she could tell me about them rivaled the images on the page and on the screen. That's why I was so delighted a few years ago when a friend told me that I needed to read this blog.
Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style is written by a woman named Anne Helen Petersen. Anne has a Ph.D. in The History of Celebrity Gossip from the University of Texas-Austin. This alone pretty much makes her my idol, but she is also terribly insightful and funny, and incredibly knowledgeable about the topics upon which she writes. She also contributes articles on Scandals of Classic Hollywood to the terrific and terrific-ly funny ladyblog, The Hairpin, and I have lost myself for hours reading those stories. You learn so many fascinating things about the private lives of these stars, many of which were covered up or totally fabricated by the big studio publicity machines.
Here are two of her articles that I loved:
Ava Gardner: The Second-Look Girl
Cary Grant's Intimate Bromance
If you love movies, Old Hollywood, celebrity gossip, or PR spin, you will love reading Anne Helen Petersen's work. It's the perfect thing to get you in the mood for Oscar Night!
Images courtesy of The Hairpin and Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style.
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