two weeks pass...
Omg Nicholas Ray, what an epic life or three---this may look like a lot, but so much more:
...As 1932 ended, Ray left college, and, now calling himself Nicholas Ray, sought new opportunities, including, with the help of Thornton Wilder, meeting Frank Lloyd Wright, with the hope of joining Wright's Fellowship at Taliesin. Lacking the tuition fee, in 1933 Ray ventured to New York City, where, staying in Greenwich Village, he had his first encounters with the city's bohemia.[100] There, shortly before his stint at Taliesin, Ray met young writer Jean Evans (born Jean Abrahams, later Abrams), and they started a relationship.[101][102] After he returned east, they lived together, and married in 1936. When Ray took a position at the WPA in Washington, by January 1937 they had moved to Arlington, Virginia.[103] They had one son, Anthony Nicholas (born November 24, 1937), known as Tony, and named for Ray's friend and fellow Federal Theatre director Anthony Mann.[104] Washington government life wore on both Ray and Evans, and Ray's drinking and unfaithfulness strained their marriage. Evans moved back to New York in 1940, having found a job at PM, the new leftist newspaper. Ray returned to New York as well, in May of that year, but soon the couple separated. A few months later he again attempted to reconcile, while also living at Almanac House, a Greenwich Village loft occupied by Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Millard Lampell, core members of the Almanac Singers. He committed himself for a time to psychoanalysis, but in time fell back into old habits. Evans filed for divorce in December 1941, and the process was finalized the next summer.[105][106]
...Relocating to Los Angeles to work with Elia Kazan, Ray first lived in a flat at the Villa Primavera,[108] on the corner of Harper and Fountain, that became the model for the apartment building in In A Lonely Place, before moving into a house in Santa Monica. While at Fox, he socialized with fellow transplanted east coasters and theatre folk at Gene Kelly and Betsy Blair's house, among them Judith Tuvim, soon to be known as Judy Holliday, whom he had briefly, unsuccessfully pursued in New York, after his marriage ended. On one occasion, fueled by alcohol, they waded into Santa Monica Bay, an excursion that turned into a halfhearted double suicide attempt, before they changed their minds and struggled back to dry land.[109]
While directing A Woman's Secret, he became involved with the film's co-star, Gloria Grahame, later remembering, "I was infatuated with her but I didn't like her very much."[110] Nonetheless, they married in Las Vegas on June 1, 1948, just five hours after her divorce from her first husband was granted, and five months before the birth of their son, Timothy, on November 12. (RKO announced that he was born "almost four months before the date he was expected.")[111] Tensions in their marriage were known early on, and by autumn 1949, while shooting In A Lonely Place, they had separated for the first time, keeping the split a secret from studio executives.[112][113] At the end of the year, they announced that they planned to travel to Wisconsin, to spend the holidays with Ray's family there, but he went alone, reuniting with his mother and three sisters, and then on to New York and Boston, to prepare his next project, On Dangerous Ground, and to see his ex-wife and firstborn.[114][115] In 1950, as that project was ending and as In A Lonely Place was opening, Ray and Grahame were reported to have reconciled, living in Malibu, though their marriage remained dysfunctional.[116] Ray stated that he had discovered Grahame in bed with his son, Tony, who was 13 years old at the time*.[49][117][118] Although they were irreparably estranged, Ray and Grahame were nominally connected again, when he was called on to help rescue Macao (1952), a project Josef von Sternberg was directing for RKO. Ray directed additional scenes, but evidently none in which she was featured.[119] Grahame filed for divorce, and she testified in court that Ray had struck her twice, once at a party and once in private, at home, before the divorce was granted, on August 15, 1952.[120] Gloria Grahame and Tony Ray married in 1960 and divorced in 1974. Tony Ray died June 29, 2018, age 80.[121]
The HUAC investigations of Hollywood and the entertainment industry, which largely coincided with Ray's marriage to and divorce from Gloria Grahame, further weighed on him...Although he had been wary of therapy, by court order in the divorce, he started seeing psychoanalyst Carel Van der Heide. Even so, he continued womanizing (columnist Dorothy Kilgallen called him "a well-known movie colony heartbreaker"[124]) and drinking, both prodigiously. He had romances with both Shelley Winters and Marilyn Monroe, who were roommates at the time, as well as Joan Crawford—with whom he was planning a suspense film, Lisbon, in 1952, and who later starred in Johnny Guitar—and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
...Johnny Guitar was preposterous to Ray, and a trial for him to work with Joan Crawford, but it also placed reasonably well on Variety's list of "1954 Boxoffice Champs," increasing his professional capital.[127] By now, he had moved into Bungalow 2 at the Chateau Marmont, his headquarters while shooting Rebel Without A Cause, a project of particular importance to him, about troubled young people. That was where he pitched his need to make such a film to Lew Wasserman, prompting his agent to send him to Warner Bros. The hotel residence also became Ray's headquarters and rehearsal space, and it was where James Dean arrived, aiming to meet the director. Dean started to attend Ray's "Sunday afternoons," his regular gatherings of friends at the bungalow, where scenes of the film to come were starting to take shape.[128] Natalie Wood remembered Ray's relationship with Dean as "fatherly," and attributed the same quality to Sal Mineo's and her own connection to their director, even though the sixteen year-old also was sexually attracted to him, and his bungalow became the site of their assignations, while she was also involved with supporting player Dennis Hopper. Ray himself was also busy with roommates Monroe and Winters, Geneviève Aumont (then the professional name of Michèle Montau), and even Lew Wasserman's wife, Edie, while also interested in Jayne Mansfield, whom he tested for the role Wood won in Rebel.[129]
Ray and Wood continued their affair for several months after production wrapped, and while he was shooting his next project, Hot Blood (1956), a pregnancy scare, which turned out to be false, prompted her to break off the romance.
Returning to Europe, in London, Ray met Gavin Lambert, with whom he had corresponded since Lambert's pioneering positive review of They Live By Night.[133] Talking about In A Lonely Place, Lambert remembered Ray's comments about Dix Steele, Bogart's character, at the film's end: "Will he become a hopeless drunk, or kill himself, or seek psychiatric help? Those have always been my personal options, by the way."[134] After a night of vodka and conversation, after 3:30 am, Ray and Lambert, who was gay, had sex, and Ray cautioned "that he wasn't really homosexual, not really even bisexual," advising that he had slept with many women, "but only two or three men."[135] The next day, Ray urged Lambert to accompany him to Hollywood to work on what became Bigger Than Life, and Lambert remained a sometimes-sexual partner, while Ray continued to pursue women. According to Lambert, Ray "behaved like a possessive lover, expecting me to be always here on call...," while Ray continued to dwell on the loss of James Dean.[136]
igger Than Life tells the story of a man who grows reliant on his abuse of medication, and consequently more and more broken. The connections to Ray, who had grown increasingly dependent on both alcohol and drugs, were not lost, even on Ray. In 1976, Ray confessed to himself, in a private journal entry, that he had lived in a "continuous blackout between 1957 or earlier until now,"[137] and his wife Susan, on seeing the film, commented to her husband, "This is your story before you lived it."[138] Ray's drug use was abetted, while he was shooting Bitter Victory, by his new girlfriend, a heroin addict named Manon, and his gambling losses led him to a pitiable state that broke his friendship with Gavin Lambert.[139]
Seventeen year-old Betty Utey first crossed paths with Nick Ray in 1951, at RKO, when he was assigned to direct some additional scenes for Androcles and the Lion (1952), including one with a troupe of bikini-clad dancers. He described it as the "steam room of the vestal virgins."[140] Some weeks after shooting the scene, in which he featured her, he asked her out to the ballet and dinner, and then took her to the house he was renting, having split with Gloria Grahame. At the end of their evening, like In A Lonely Place, he called a cab and sent her home. She subsequently did not hear from him for almost three years, when he called her to come to his Chateau Marmont bungalow for an assignation. He then disappeared again, until 1956, when he called again.[141] In 1958, she won a place as one of the chorines in Party Girl, and after shooting ended they eloped to Maine, where Ray hoped to start his third marriage by drying out. En route, he collapsed at Boston's Logan Airport, suffering from the DTs. He recovered sufficiently to travel on to Kennebunkport, where the couple spent several weeks, before marrying on October 13, 1958.[142] They had two daughters, both born in Rome: Julie Christina, on January 10, 1960, and Nicca, October 1, 1961.[143][144] Ray's mother Lena had died in March 1959.[145]
That's enough, gotta go take nap---read so much more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Ray
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Grahame
*Grahame's lover Peter Turner, who wrote Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool about her, disputes the claim that Tony Ray was only 13 when they first hooked up.
― dow, Saturday, 15 January 2022 03:52 (two years ago) link
María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez (July 18, 1908 – December 14, 1944), known professionally as Lupe Vélez, was a Mexican actress, dancer, and singer during the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Lupe_V%C3%A9lez_in_1941.jpg/330px-Lupe_V%C3%A9lez_in_1941.jpg
Relationships and marriage
Vélez was involved in several highly publicized and often stormy relationships. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, she was linked to actors Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin and Clark Gable.[53] Her first long-term, high-profile relationship was with Gary Cooper. Vélez and Cooper met while filming 1929s Wolf Song and began a two-year relationship that was passionate and often stormy.[60] When angered, Vélez was reported to have physically assaulted Cooper. Cooper eventually ended the relationship in mid-1931, at the behest of his mother Alice who after meeting her, strongly disapproved of Vélez.[51] With plans to marry him gone, she spoke to the press in 1931: "I turned Cooper down because his parents didn't want me to marry him and because the studio thought it would injure his career. Now its over, I'm glad I feel so free ... I must be free. I know men too well they are all the same, no? If you love them they want to be boss. I will never have a boss."[51] The rocky relationship had taken its toll on Cooper, who had lost 45 pounds and was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Paramount Pictures ordered him to take a vacation to recuperate and while he was boarding the train, Vélez showed up at the station and fired a pistol at him.[52]
After her breakup with Cooper, Vélez began a short-lived relationship with actor John Gilbert. They began dating in late 1931, while Gilbert was separated from his third wife Ina Claire.[61] Rumors of an engagement were fueled by the couple,[62] but Gilbert ended the relationship in early 1932, and attempted to reconcile with Claire.[53][61]
Vélez and Johnny Weissmuller photographed shortly after their wedding in October 1933
Shortly thereafter, Vélez met Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller while the two were in New York. They dated off and on when they returned to Los Angeles, while Vélez also dated actor Errol Flynn.[63] On October 8, 1933, Vélez and Weissmuller were married in Las Vegas.[64] There were reports of domestic violence and public fights.[49] In July 1934, after ten months of marriage, Vélez filed for divorce citing "cruelty". She withdrew the petition a week later after reconciling with Weissmuller.[65] On January 3, 1935, she filed for divorce a second time and was granted an interlocutory decree.[66] That decree was dismissed when the couple reconciled a month later. In August 1938, Vélez filed for divorce for a third time, again charging Weissmuller with cruelty. Their divorce was finalized in August 1939.[67]
After the divorce became final, Vélez began dating polo player Guinn "Big Boy" Williams in late 1940. The couple were engaged,[68] but never married.[69][70] In late 1941, she became involved with author Erich Maria Remarque. Actress Luise Rainer recalled that Remarque told her "with the greatest of glee" that he found Vélez's volatility wonderful when he recounted to her an occasion where Vélez became so angry with him that she took her shoe off and hit him with it.[71] After dating Remarque, Vélez was linked to boxers Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey.[53]
In 1943, Vélez began an affair with her La Zandunga co-star Arturo de Córdova. De Córdova had recently moved to Los Angeles after signing with Paramount. Despite the fact that de Córdova was married to Mexican actress Enna Arana with whom he had four children, Vélez granted an interview to gossip columnist Louella Parsons in September 1943 and announced that the two were engaged. She told Parsons that she planned to retire after marrying de Córdova to "cook ... and keep house".[72] Vélez ended the engagement in early 1944, after de Córdova's wife refused to give him a divorce.
Vélez then met and began dating a struggling young Austrian actor named Harald Maresch, whose stage name was Harald Ramond. In September 1944, she discovered she was pregnant with Ramond's child. She announced their engagement in late November 1944.[36] On December 10, four days before her death, Vélez announced she had ended the engagement and kicked Ramond out of her home.[73]
Committed suicide, left a note saying why, but also much ridic and some fugly in section Alternative Theories and Urban Legend, incl. ridic x fugly passage in Hollywood Babylon, later a runny joek,
that kind of treatment sure didn't start with Britney
---but also Velez had quite a career in Mexico and Hollywood:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupe_V%C3%A9lez
― dow, Monday, 24 January 2022 02:13 (two years ago) link