Friday, November 4, 2011

Old Hollywood Class

In 1979, as it became known that John Wayne was dying of cancer, Barry Goldwater introduced legislation to award him the Congressional Gold Medal. Maureen O'Hara and Elizabeth Taylor flew to Washington to give testimony, and signed statements in support of the motion from Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon, Kirk Douglas, James Stewart and Katharine Hepburn were read out. The bill was passed unanimously, and the medal was presented to the Wayne family in the following year.

Old Hollywood trivia is full of these sorts of honors, awards, tributes in relation to the biggest stars we'll ever know.  The only thing we know these days about rising actors is how many times they've been married, if they've ever starred in a viral video, and what their favorite drink from Starbucks is.  The Hollywood movie machine used to be so classy...what happened?

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