My journey ends here...
SKOLSKY Sidney
Date of birth : May 2nd 1905, New York City.
Date of death : May 3rd 1983, Los Angeles.
Practise:
Famous Hollywood reporter; he wrote articles and columns in several newspaper on the East and West Coast, and kept himself closely informed about the Hollywood life. He devoted himself to discover young talents.
His office was located on the mezzanine of the Schwab's Drugstore :
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He had chosen this place for a very simple reason : the Schwab's gave
him every drugs he wanted. At that time, the American government hadn't
yet regulated the drugs sale and there was no opprobrium linked to the
regular use of barbiturates and amphetamines.
Story
Originated in Russian jew, small, stocky, he boasted about identifying the talent right away.
In the 20's, he was a press agent in New York City.
Then he left New York to Los Angeles where he was recognized as a movie critic.
Witty and fierce, he soon became a local celebrity. His witty remarks went around the studios as a wildfire.
He was famous for having given a smacking to Shirley Temple who had damaged his new hat.
His columns dealt with each subject more deeply than Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper's gossips, and he treated his readers to technical informations about cinema, despising the backstage gossips.Capricious, unpredictable, hypochondriac, he had a phobia of water, cats, dogs and everything else.
He periodically had some depressive episodes.
He haunted the Twentieth Century Fox premises; he knew all the heads of the studio, including the 2 publicity veterans, Harry Brand and Roy Craft.
He met Marilyn in 1949.
For a long time, he was one of the passionate people who accompanied her everywhere, as Marlene Dietrich had done it several years earlier.
He became one of her most fervent partisans and one of her safer accomplice in the press; she often called him to ask for an advice about her publicity but also about her clothes and the image she had to forge. He helped her to promote her career while she started it, and he would have convinced the producer Jerry Wald to give her a part in "Clash By Night" (1952).
Several times, he wrote some press releases to help her to come through delicate situations, as for the nude calendar scandal (March 13th 1952) or when it was revealed that her mother was still alive, while the studio had always maintained that she was an orphan.
In 1950 he accompanied her in Palm Springs, where she wanted to meet her potential father, Stanley Gifford.
In 1950 on the set of "All About Eve":
From 1952 to 1954 when Marilyn lived with Joe DiMaggio,
he was often her partner at the show business parties (DiMaggio didn't want to be publicly reminded that his wife was the biggest sex-symbol of the country).
1952 : shooting of "Niagara" :
On February 9th 1953, the Photoplay prizegiving :
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On February 14th 1953, wedding of Sheila
Graham :
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In 1953, party given by a magazine :
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He interviewed Marilyn at Doheny Drive in June 1953 for the article "I Love Marilyn", published in Modern Screen magazine.
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Modern Screen magazine
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On March 8th 1954, the Photoplay prizegiving :
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On October 27th 1954, he accompanied her at the Santa Monica court, for the appearance for her divorce from DiMaggio :
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In 1954 he wrote Marilyn's second biography. He met her, after her divorce from DiMaggio, at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel.
On November 6th 1954, Charles Feldman organized a party in Marilyn's honor at Romanoff, consacrating her finally as a star; Sidney Skolsky attended this party :
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On November 19th 1954, he went, with Marilyn, to see Ella Fitzgerald who performed at El Mocambo :
On the set of "The Seven Year Itch" :
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On the set of "There's No Business Like Show Business" :
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On the set of "Some Like It Hot" :
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On the set of "Let's Make Love" :
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Like Marilyn, he periodically suffered from depression and they both abused of drugs; as his office was located in a drugstore, he had access to an almost unlimited stock.
He produced 2 biopics : "The Al Jolson Story" (1946) and "The Eddie Cantor Story" (1953).
With Marilyn, they planned to shoot another movie, "The
Jean Harlow Story" in which Marilyn had to get the leading role.
On August 4th 1962 he had an appointment with her to talk about the direction of the movie; but their meeting was postponed on August 5th 1962. In July 1962, they had both visited Jean
Harlow's mother and obtained her blessing for the movie.
Picture with Dean Martin, in 1960, on the set of "Who Was that Lady" :
"Marilyn",
Sidney Skolsky, New York, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing, 1954
"Don't Get Me Wrong - I love Hollywood", Sidney Skolsky, New York, The Putnam Berkeley Group,
1975.
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