Raising the "bar" on Hollywood

OK...OK.  No more puns (maybe)

I am an unabashed fan of the Golden Age of Hollywood.  Brad who?  Tom wha?  Exactly three current Hollywood stars do anything for me, and they are Liam Neeson, Daniel Craig and Jean Dujardin.  The rest - meh.

Give me...

John Payne...

(remember him from "Miracle on 34th Street"?)

the insanely hot Robert Mitchum...

the glamorously swashbuckling Stewart Granger...

(whose ability to look hot and virile in tights was of course second only to...)

Errol Flynn...

(the original Tasmanian Devil)

the never ubiquitous and always iconic

Cary Grant

and my personal favorite - the baddest bad boy of film noir - 

Steve Cochran...

over ANY modern "flavor-of-the-month"

I think that the 30s/40s/50s era of Hollywood - especially say from 1939 - the mid 50s - is a perfect compliment to the French apartment style I'm desperately trying to cultivate ("desperately" being the key word here).  I have a small bar area that consists of a demi-lune table that is vaguely French (via the now defunct Bombay Company).  The metal is silvery pewter, which works for my living room.  I have a small collection of vintage bar stuff - coupe glasses, bar tools, books, etc. - and I'm hopefully going to be collecting some more.

vintage martini glasses

(notice their size - they are NOTHING like the ridiculously

oversized glasses sold today.  This way, you can actually have

*two* drinks before dinner and not have to be poured into

your dining chair)

Right now the area is a mess because it's striped up with my fevered attempts to find just the perfect shade of  grey for the living room walls.  Thankfully, that mission has been accomplished.

I am considering a Venetian glass mirror, or perhaps a very ornate frame that I can silver leaf and use for a mirror frame.  I'm still on the lookout for that item.

In the meantime, I've definitely decided to use this iconic photograph by the great society photographer - Slim Aarons - as part of my bar area.  It screams elegance and taste and just takes me to a place where things were a little nicer, a little more formal and a lot more gracious.  It's called "The Kings of Hollywood", and I cannot think of a more appropriate title, can you?

Here's a close-up of the photo:

Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart

New Years' Eve, 1957

The Crown Room of Romanoff's

They don't make 'em like this any longer - and it's our great loss.