"You'll never see the likes of this again . . ."

That was said by Frank Sinatra, in reference to Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell's dancing skills as well as the classic movie musicals of the 1930s through the 1950s. Well, he was sure right. Classic films from those decades are something that we'll never see the likes of again. Nowadays everybody is too "beauty" conscious --- with a total disregard of talent outside of beauty.

Mom has always raised us with old movies and music, not mention a love of history and old things. In fact, our house is filled with old things and could resemble a museum if you looked closely. I was just born fifty years too late, because my favorite everything is from 1935 through 1947. How sad. Someone told us once that Elizabeth and I have "old brains" (he meant it as a compliment). You know, he's right. We certainly have a strange sense of reality, since we feel more comfortable in black and white, a forty-eight star flag and a day when there were no overhead lights around the house. Most of the time I have a "detatched" feeling to this modern era. I mean, people sit at the movie theater and text one line, meaningless messages to their friends . . . instead of watching the movie that they just paid to see. You can't go out to lunch with people because they have to check their cell phone eighty times, just in case someone gives them a call. Someone they would obviously rather be with than you.

Ahem. Now that I've got that off my mind we can get to the real reason for this post. Over the last few weeks Elizabeth and I decided to start sending for autographs from film stars that we like. Most of my favorites have been buried for a long time now (Nelson Eddy would be 109 years old this month!), but we have found a surprising number of the "classic" film stars to write letters to who still sign. Several years ago we sent for autographs from Deanna Durbin and Esther Williams, and were thrilled when they were both successes.

This week we have received two more really cool autographs!! A couple of days ago Lauren Bacall returned our pictures with personalized autographs. Really cool since she never personalizes. :) We sent pictures of her and Humphrey Bogart at Malabar Farm when they got married. Since we've been to Malabar Farm quite a lot over the years it has always been special that two of our favorite actors were actually married there. Wow! I love Lauren Bacall. She's a great example of beauty and talent!



Then today we received personalized photos from Doris Day! How cool is that?! We've been fans of hers for years. Her two LP set "Hooray for Hollywood" is some of the best music you'll ever here. We've actually had to stop listening to it until Elizabeth has a chance to turn it over to CD. The records are in danger of actually loosing their grooves.



We've found several other film stars from the classic film era to send fan mail to, so hopefully we'll have more things to post. We've actually found quite a surprising number of modern people to send to as well, mostly from British TV shows. It's been really fun collecting addresses and sending letters (we'll probably be working on more this evening!). Now all we have to do is start putting the autographs into a scrapbook.

Another really fun thing that started this week was the Summer Movie Series down in Columbus. They play classic films at a theater in downtown for a couple months every Summer. It's a bit of a drive to get there, but sure is worth it! Yesterday afternoon we saw the first of the season: Hitchcock's Rear Window. I've never been a fan of that movie really . . . thought it was boring, if you want the truth. But it sure is amazing what a difference it makes to see things on the big screen. Wow! I really enjoyed it and was on the edge of my seat for the finale. On Thursday we get to see Capra's It Happened One Night (one of my favorites). I'll post more on that later this week!