Nell Beram is coauthor of Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies. She has contributed several pieces to Bright Lights and has written about movies for The Awl, L’Officiel, and V magazine. 
Class System · Drama · Hollywood · Melodrama
Before we were townies, we were snobs. * * * Before Hollywood regarded “Bostonian” as a synonym for “townie” – see Mystic River (2003), The Departed (2006), Gone Baby Gone[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Comics · Eastern European · Hollywood
S. Z. Sakall’s ultra-rare 1954 memoir, The Story of Cuddles, attests that there was more to the comic actor than adorable fretfulness and jiggly jowls * * * He was[…]
Counterculture · Music & Musicals · Noir
In noir, tales of wrongful accusation tend to play out on mean streets that reflect social inequalities, which at times do have a nasty way of tilting normally upright people[…]
Actors & Personalities · Books · Characters · Hollywood
David Lazar, Celeste Holm Syndrome: On Character Actors from Hollywood’s Golden Age (Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, October 2020) * * * I’d have to say that the best definition[…]
We’ve reposted this piece before because, really, can there ever be enough Doris? Her talent, humor, and joie de vivre are a tonic in a world increasingly locked down and[…]
Horror · Interviews · Movies · SF & Fantasy
* * * It’s The Day of the Triffids’ fault: when he was a wee lad stuck at home in front of the television with a sprained arm (fault: sister,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals
“The reason I sought out Betty Garrett’s book in the first place was because of something devastating that I read – and didn’t want to be true – in Farley[…]
When I wrote my piece in praise of Doris Day for Bright Lights back in December 2015, I had seen about half of her thirty-nine movies. Now that I’ve seen[…]
