Laird Cregar

Laird at his heaviest---I think. He loathed being a character actor and was trying to break into leading man roles. He thought losing weight could achieve this. He did lose weight and it was evident on his last film Hangover Square--what wasn't as obvious was he was abusing speed for the weight loss. This affected his heart and mood. He argued with the director of the film John Brahm apparantly toward the end of his life . Also director of Cregar's famous film, "The Lodger." Cregar had a heart attack and died. Another part of his body image complex was his inner conflict about being a homosexual. I wish there was a biography of Laird Cregar. The best information I get is the commentary on The DVD's I can't imagine where these historians are getting info. about Cregar. There is a glaring absence of biographical material on the man

Carole Landis

I watched a 1941 movie, "I Wake Up Screaming." A very little known, cult, overlooked proto-noir according to Eddie Muller who does the commentary soundtrack. Mr. Muller has written many books on Film Noir. He writes his own pulp fiction noir-ish novels.. In the commentary he talks a lot about the visual style of the film, as well as the fascinating cast which includes Laird Cregar ( The Lodger, This Gun for Hire) Ginger Rogers, Victor Mature and Carole Landis.

The life of Carole Landis would be a fascinating subject to work on a great screenplay bio-pic. Not an Oxygen network type made for TV badness---an excellent biopic. So would Bruce Lee. It would be cool to have the budget to re-create the era. Landis was only 29 when she committed suicide and Burce Lee only 33 when he suffered his fatal brain hemorrhage.