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Who Owned Who
Topic Started: Nov 5 2013, 09:30 PM (611 Views)
Fantomas
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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TCM is sponsoring an auction of movie memorabilia at Bonham's in New York. I was looking through their on-line catalog when I came across this painting:

Posted Image

Can you guess which movie star's portrait this is, and which other movie star commissioned it, and then owned it until the day he died? (Answer below.)




















































































It's a picture of Clara Bow, paid for and owned by Bela Lugosi. The details can be found here:

http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21427/lot/138/

Interesting to read that as late as 1929 Lugosi spoke no English, and had to learn his lines phonetically.


"For life is short, but death is long."
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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Wonderful. Wasn't she the bee's knees?
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Frank Hale
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My first reaction was "that doesn't look anything like Clara Bow". Where's the proto-Afro?

And indeed the Bonham's write-up is a bit garbled and vague as to whether it was Clara, a stand-in, or the eternal woman. Ah, well.

Always thought Bela was a snappy dresser, but this adds new dimensions.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Them Hungarians is a randy lot, Frank.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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CliffClaven
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Trying to remember where, but recall a Lugosi bio where somebody claimed he once pulled up his shirt to proudly display claw marks on his back. "Clara!," he bragged.
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Laughing Gravy
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In 1939, Ed Sullivan interviewed Lugosi and reported that the guy didn't speak English.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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Frank Hale
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When a man speaks the eternal language of love (and has claw marks on his back), he does not need English.
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mort bakaprevski
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1931:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=35piJvqIFGQ
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
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Fantomas
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1955: (What a couple of decades will do)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrO9uDF4_dE&lc=146HHXnBHrb4quF2OUn76YCyLsjFm_1l3Ycdo605WmE
"For life is short, but death is long."
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mort bakaprevski
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Now in most discussions, the two interviews posted above would end the business about Lugosi not being able to speak English. However, we all know how Gravy tenaciously sticks to his favorite myths.
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
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panzer the great & terrible
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The movie business lends itself to mythomania, beginning with all the press agentry that still surrounds every release. The film industry, particularly on its lower levels, abounds with ignorant people who delight in spreading outrageous and malicious rumors. I've spent my life listening to "facts" about movie people that couldn't possibly be true.

It may be true that Lugosi learned his part in the play, Dracula, by rote, but it's ridiculous to imagine he survived in the film industry all those years without learning English. Granted, he never learned to say "Only a fool would act in that picture," but I'm sure he learned to order strudel.

In any case, Ed Sullivan may have simply meant that Lugosi had an accent. He wasn't exactly an authority on linguistics, or much of anything for that matter -- he was just a rumormonger.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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