It’s tempting for us to wax poetic about the golden era of Hollywood for all its glamour and grace. The truth of the matter is that things aren’t always as they seem and that even back then, the life of a star was filled with its own range of trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, the looks of things–the sets, the costumes, the hair and makeup–incite the strongest feelings of nostalgia and rosey reminiscence that we simply have to submit and enjoy these 15 examples of what life looked like on studio backlots and at star-studded mixers before most of us were born.
#1: Directors At Work
Directors had a commanding sense of presence on their sets in the early days of Hollywood. On the left, we see Billy Wilder directing Barbara Stanwyck on the set of their masterwork, Double Indemnity. On the right, Orson Welles gives direction from a perspective above the set of his legendary film Citizen Kane.