Stars And Their Cars

[vitanola]

Of course we have popular comedian Jack Benny with his famous Maxwell:

Rudolph Valentino and Natasha Rambova with their 1923 Vosin fitted with its Landaulet de Ville body ( the same chassis was also provided with a Sport Turing body)

Ed Brendel and his 1943 Hupmobile Model J Six:

 

[basbol13]

A real actor playing the role. Novarro and Bushman manage to convey the story silently with far fewer superfluous histrionics than do Heston and Boyd.

The chariot race scene blows the '59 version out of the water, I think.

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A little side note on the Silent Version, when it came time to film the race, the drivers were offered a $5000.00 to the winner. It was felt that if the stuntmen were given an incentive, the race would be more authentic.

 

[basbol13]

Paul Newman

 

[basbol13]

The King

 

[basbol13]

Babe

 

[vitanola]

Babe

I knew that he had a Diana Touring Car, and a town sedan. Never knew that he also had a Coupe. The Diana was advertised as "The Easiest Steering car in America", aimed primarily at the distaff market.

 

[Stearmen]

Geronimo at the controls of a 1904 Locomobile Model C.

 

[basbol13]

Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller)

 

[basbol13]

I knew that he had a Diana Touring Car, and a town sedan. Never knew that he also had a Coupe. The Diana was advertised as "The Easiest Steering car in America", aimed primarily at the distaff market.

Babe also had a 1026 Auburn Roadster he got as a birthday gift

 

[vitanola]

Babe also had a 1026 Auburn Roadster he got as a birthday gift

When I was in college I replaced my Flivver with a larger car, a Paige 8-85 seven passenger sedan. The Paige used the same Lycoming straight eight as did the Auburn 8-88 which the Babe drove. It was a smooth and powerful engine but it was notorious for valve trouble. The intake manifold was so very long that either cylinders #1 and #8 ran lean, burning their exhaust valves, or cylinders #4 and #5 ran rich, carboning the valves up. The problem could be largely solved by installing one of the accessory dual carb set-ups made for the reproduction Auburn speedsters. I fitted one of these assemblies to the car, a newly made aluminum "log" and a pair of Schebler carbs. Could never get them to operate perfectly in synch, and gosh how they swallowed gas!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Geronimo at the controls of a 1904 Locomobile Model C.

If there's anything that rams home the truth that the Old West was far from ancient history in the Era, it's the idea of Geronimo driving around in a car.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ I don't have the facts at my command to back this up, but I remember reading once that the "Old West" as popularly portrayed for, now, close to a hundred years in movies and, seventy or so years on TV, only existed in fragments across the West and for, maybe, twenty years.

But it is easy to see why it has been used by Hollywood so much - it's a great story devise / great for morality tales / great for individualist-hero stories.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In a lot of ways the "Wild West" was to the first half of the twentieth century what "The Fifties" were to the last quarter of that century -- a period with a public image built out of fragments of truth overlaid by a thick, impenetrable layer of misshapen nostalgia and mytholigization by the Boys who doled out popular culture. And as with the case of Wyatt Earp, some of the actual participants in the period lived long enough to participate in that mythologization.

Not to be outdone by Geronimo, here's Buffalo Bill at the wheel of his 1908 White steamer.

 

[Fading Fast]

I would almost think living past "their" era would have hurt their mythology. Growing up, Terry Bradshaw was almost, not quite, the Tom Brady of all those '70s Steeler Super Bowl teams. I've met him twice since - both by accident - in the '90s and while he seemed like a nice enough guy (very surface likable), seeing hm heavy, older and in a suit - not in a Steeler uniform, firing touchdown passes - somehow, it demystified him a bit.

I've always thought Marylyn Monroe checked out at the perfect time for her iconography (not for herself, family or friends) as that train was about to barrel completely off the tracks. James Dean might have done even more had he lived, but three classic films and a look to define his era's teenage-rebellion mythology ensured his iconography. Elvis had laid down enough cool for most of his life to paper over the final fat, jumpsuit years - but from a mythology point of view, he was past his expiration date.

Let me emphasize, I wish all three had lived full and happy lives. But facts are what they are and my point is that dying early is part of what led to their mythology / their iconography.

 

[Benzadmiral]

That is one impressive looking car. While not the point of that car at all (I get that), it looks hard as heck to get in and out of.

It must have been . . . and it didn't have air conditioning, or any way to open the windows in the doors! I mean, you could lift the panes out and slide them into receptacles in the interior, but you couldn't wind them down. Imagine how hot that car must have been while on location for The Misfits!

 

[Fading Fast]

It must have been . . . and it didn't have air conditioning, or any way to open the windows in the doors! I mean, you could lift the panes out and slide them into receptacles in the interior, but you couldn't wind them down. Imagine how hot that car must have been while on location for The Misfits!

As a pragmatist, I rarely say this - but it was all worth it because that car looks just that insanely good. Functionality be damned, sometimes it's all about the aesthetic.

 

[basbol13]

Harold Lloyd and wife Mildred Davies

 

[vitanola]

Harold Lloyd and wife Mildred Davies

Those Buick Sixes are delightful cars to drive. I think that Miss Davies is driving a 1926 Master Six.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Geronimo at the controls of a 1904 Locomobile Model C.

...cue Hoyt Axton, "Geronimo's Cadillac." As a youngster, I thought the song was intended to be surreal, but seeing this changes everything.

 

[Stearmen]

How about Sir Douglas Bader and his prewar MGTA?