Poché Pictures

Gloria came into the world already half-dipped in greasepaint, the baby of a vaudeville clan that never stopped moving, never stopped talking, never stopped hustling for one more laugh. Born into the Bouncing Blondells—yes, that was really the family act—she didn’t so much learn to perform as she learned to breathe. “A trouper at three,” … Read More “Gloria Blondell – the understudy to a dynasty, laughing through the smoke” »

She came into the world in New York City, dropped right into the noise and heat like she’d been summoned by neon. A baby with shampoo-commercial eyes and a mother who taught her how to pose for photographers before she could read, Yasmine never had a chance at a quiet life. She started working at … Read More “Yasmine Bleeth – sunburned glamour, red-light blues” »

She comes out of Chicago winter like a brass note that never learned to apologize. December 19, 1972, the kind of birthday that arrives when the streets are slick and everybody’s collar is up. Italian blood from a father who taught in a suburban college, Irish–Puerto Rican fire from a mother who knew how to … Read More “Rosa Blasi — loud heart, sharp laugh, survivor” »

Sally Blane was born Elizabeth Jane Young on July 11, 1910, in Salida, Colorado, a place small enough to teach you what distance means. In 1916 her family headed west to California, like so many people who thought the sun might be a kind of rescue. They were right and wrong at the same time. … Read More “Sally Blane : Working girl, famous sisters, quiet fire” »

Olive Blakeney was born on August 21, 1894, in Newport, Kentucky, which is the kind of river town that teaches you early about margins—who gets to float and who gets stuck on the bank. She came of age in the last years when a woman’s ambition still had to wear gloves in public. The world … Read More “Olive Blakeney : Stage-bred mother, screen steel heart.” »

Loretta Blake was one of those early movie ghosts—there, bright as a struck match, and then gone before anyone figured out how to keep the flame in a jar. Born April 17, 1898, out in Akron, Ohio, she came up in a country still learning how to look at itself. The movies were young then, … Read More “Loretta Blake : Silent-era spark, vanished reels, quiet end.” »

Luna Blaise Boyd came into the world on October 1, 2001, in Los Angeles—one of those kids born under the neon hum of a town that sells dreams the way gas stations sell coffee. Her father, Paul Boyd, is a director from Glasgow, the kind of place where rain teaches you to keep moving. Her … Read More “Luna Blaise : Child star, sharp teeth, big screens.” »

Betsy Blair was born Elizabeth Winifred Boger on December 11, 1923, in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, and she spent almost her whole life refusing to be quiet about what she loved. Art, ideas, people, the messy, tender machinery of being alive—she chased all of it from the time she was eight years old, when she … Read More “Betsy Blair – Blacklisted heart, stubborn stage light.” »

Taylor Black’s story starts with a name that got sharpened for the business. She was born Taylor Gildersleeve, a Long Island girl with a bright, double-barreled surname that sounded like old family money and tidewater lawns. But Hollywood likes its syllables chewed clean and easy, so she stepped into the world as Taylor Black—short, punchy, … Read More “Taylor Black : Pageant crown, soap grit, producer’s hustle.” »

Josie Bissett was born Jolyn Christine Heutmaker on October 5, 1970, in Seattle, a city that knows how to keep its head down while the rain does the talking. She didn’t come out of some gilded Hollywood terrarium. She came out of the Northwest, where people learn early that the world isn’t going to sparkle … Read More “Josie Bissett : Soap-opera soul, Seattle steady heart” »