Lucille Ball on "MGM"

This was the heyday of the movies; it was hard to keep a level head and one's sense of values. MGM made over-worked, spoiled idols out of Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, and Elizabeth Taylor; it wasn't the kids' fault, nor the studio's, it was the System. I too was on the spoiling list for a while, but I didn't go along with it.

• Page 137   Love, Lucy (1996)

Prince by Richard Avendon

Thirty years ago today, John Lennon was gunned down...

Thirty years ago today, former Beatle John Lennon was shot outside his New York City apartment by an obsessed fan. At the time, Lennon had returned to music with the release of his and Yoko Ono's album "Double Fantasy."

Elizabeth Taylor shares Richard Burton love letters

Elizabeth Taylor is, for the first time, revealing personal love letters she received from Richard Burton during their turbulent relationship.
And she has handed them over to Vanity Fair contributing editor Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, for a new book Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century (HarperCollins, 2010).
"Richard was magnificent in every sense of the word," she tells Kashner and Schoenberger, "... we were always madly and powerfully in love."
In Burton's numerous letters to Taylor, describes his infatuation, love, and need for her. Some highlights:

"If you leave me I shall have to kill myself. There is no life without you," he writes in one letter.
In another, he praises Taylor's acting gifts: "You are probably the best actress in the world, which, com­bined with your extraordinary beauty, makes you unique.
In another: "You must know, of course, how much I love you. You must know, of course, how badly I treat you. But the fundamental and most vicious, swinish, murderous, and unchangeable fact is that we totally misunderstand each other … we operate on alien wave­lengths. You are as distant as Venus—planet, I mean—and I am tone-deaf to the music of the spheres. But how-so-be-it nevertheless. (A cliché among Welsh politicians.) I love you and I always will. Come back to me as soon as you can … "
One letter she considers too personal to share with the world was written by Burton just days before his death, and she still keeps it in her bedside drawer. In it, Burton tells Taylor he wants to come home. Mailed on August 2, 1984, it arrived in Bel Air, Calif., a few days after Burton's Aug. 5 death and was waiting for Taylor when she returned from London after attending his memorial service.
The July issue of Vanity Fair will be available on newsstands in New York and L.A. on June 2, and nationally on June 8.

See photos of: Elizabeth Taylor

Cher says marriage to Sonny Bono drove her to the brink of suicide

Cher has admitted that she once considered taking her life because she was unhappy in her 10-year marriage to Sonny Bono.
"I thought about jumping off a hotel balcony," The Daily Star quoted the Oscar-winning star as saying.
The legendary singer said she struggled to cope with her husband's womanizing ways, and now accepts they should never have wed.
"Stardom made him a huge womaniser. One woman, or even five, was not enough," she said.
"I asked him, 'How did you manage the logistics?' I was trusting and faithful and, the truth is, I'm not so sure we should have ever been husband and wife," she added.
Cher also claimed that Sonny, who died in a skiing accident at the age of 62 in 1998, blackmailed her by warning that if she divorced him her career would nosedive.
She said Sonny cheated on her as she went through the heartache of four miscarriages before their daughter Chastity was born in 1969. (ANI)

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People: Marilyn Monroe diaries dish on Peter Lawford, Arthur Miller.

By Tony Hicks
Contra Costa Times

Posted: 10/07/2010 08:42:42 PM PDT

Updated: 10/07/2010 09:23:43 PM PDT

A vast archive of Marilyn Monroe's private diary entries and letters was recently discovered and is featured in the November issue of Vanity Fair, which came out Thursday.

That's right -- the November issue comes out seven days after September ends. No wonder print journalism is doomed.
Some excerpts include Monroe writing about her feelings toward Peter Lawford, JFK's brother-in-law. "(There is a) feeling of violence I've had lately about being afraid of Peter he might harm me, poison me, etc. why -- strange look in his eyes -- strange behavior. Peter wants to be a woman -- and would like to be me -- I think."
Monroe on her experience at Payne-Whitney's psychiatric ward: "There was no empathy at Payne-Whitney -- it had a very bad effect -- they asked me after putting me in a 'cell' (I mean cement blocks and all) for very disturbed depressed patients (except I felt I was in some kind of prison for a crime I hadn't committed). The inhumanity there I found archaic."
Monroe also wrote about the collapse of her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller. "Starting tomorrow I will take care of myself for that's all I really have and as I see it now have ever had. I think I hate it here because there is no love here anymore. If I lean close I'll see -- what I don't want to know -- tension, sadness, disappointment. When one wants to stay alone as my love (Arthur) indicates, the other must stay apart."