George Raft

[JackFavell]

Chocolate's not bad for you!

[charliechaplinfan]

It can't be, I only wish it wasn't fattening.

[knitwit45]

Chocolate is a food group, isn't it???

[Western Guy]

My God, now we`ve somehow segued into chocolate!

[Rita Hayworth]

I love Hot Fudge Sundaes ... and I love Chocolate just as much as any ordinary lady.

[intothenitrate]

I wonder if George Raft liked chocolate. But then again, who doesn't?

[Vienna]

One of George Raft's films I like a lot is LOAN SHARK. A great scene where he takes Dorthy Hart onto the dance floor and shows what a smooth dancer he was. He looks so at ease and the scene goes on for several minutes.
I hadn't seen Dorothy Hart before and thought she was very good.

[charliechaplinfan]

I like that film, I like that scene, George was a good dancer.

I bet he liked chocolate too, a man who didn't drink had to have another vice, perhaps it was chocolate.

[JackFavell]

I picture him with a sweet tooth for some reason.

[Western Guy]

According to Joan Bennett, George drank a LOT of Coca-Cola during the filming of SHE COULDN'T TAKE IT until the day director Tay Garnett showed George a tooth that was (apparently) rotted by excessive soft drink consumption. According to Miss Bennett, she never saw George touch another Coke on the set after that.

[charliechaplinfan]

My parents always used to go on about soft drinks rotting teeth. Someone who doesn't drink alcohol is either going to drink loads of tea and coffee or soft drinks. I don't think drinking water was that fashionable back then. I never drank water as a child, I mean why would anyone when you could have cordial?

One wonders if the horrors of smoking had been as widely known and understood back then and pictures of a diseased lung shown to George if he'd have given up smoking and saved himself from chronic lung disease. It still doesn't deter everyone.

[Western Guy]

Yeah, smoking was George's biggest mistake. It seemed as if lung problems were inherent in his family: His mother suffered from asthma, his sister died of TB, and George developed his own respiratory problems when he was in his 40s.

[charliechaplinfan]

I know smoking was at one point advertised as good for your health but I think it was more 19th century than 20th. I wonder if our grandchildren will be shaking their heads at us for consuming things that were bad for us. This is getting back to Wendy's point again.

[charliechaplinfan]

Seeing that photo on the candid thread got me to thinking about her and George. On the face of it they seem so opposite, Norma was the Queen of MGM and although nearing her retirement she had since her start at MGM in the early 20s been at the top of the roster. I automatically think of grand when I think of Norma Shearer, educated, erudite, single minded in the pursuit of her career, had wih a faith in her talent, I don't think I would apply any of those to George. She didn't come from grand origins, she just knew where she wanted to be and what's more so did her mother. She marries Irving Thalberg and is a faithful wife in what must have been a trying marriage, trying because of Irving's illness, such a brave man but one wonders if they could have behaved as young and carefree as others their age. So after a couple of years of being a widow I can see what she would see in George, Norma was fun, so was George. If reading Gavin Lambert's account (although he doesn't cite sources) Norma and George got together in an evening and didn't part until the next morning, a hotel in New York I think, then they left for Europe with the Boyers. I would think George would be just what Norma needed, fun and no strings and perhaps more passion than she was allowed with Irving. But they really liked each other and Gavin Lambert thinks they would have married if they could of and it was Norma that was the love of George's life, which I know that you know differently, stone. Still, I think George and Norma would have looked very classy together, both come across as nice people, not at all starry, it would have been good if they could have starred in a film together. Only Mayer would have choked himself before letting Norma star onscreen with George.

[Western Guy]

Of all George's Hollywood romances I believe Norma was the least serious. George's inability to marry and the pressure put on Norma from the holier-than-thou hypocrite Louis B. Mayer pretty much dictated the romance was doomed to be short-lived, which inevitably it was. Two film projects intended to feature the pair fizzled due both to studio pressure and the negative press associated with George.

Betty Grable was the gal with whom George would have been best suited -- and I believe was the one Raft fell hardest for. After all, after their romance collapsed, George never again committed himself to anything even closely resembling a love affair.