JE Smyth
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jesmyth.co.uk
JE Smyth
@jesmyth.co.uk
2.9K followers 640 following 530 posts
Writer, critic, historian |📕Mary C. McCall Jr.|📘Nobody’s Girl Friday | ed.📗I Lost My Girlish Laughter | 📚Fred Zinnemann | Mum to Z & Z, 7 🐕, + Mortimer🐰 | Ban AI
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jesmyth.co.uk
Remembering the man who bought other people presents on his birthday...🖤

#RichardBurton #BOTD
November 10, 2025 at 9:46 AM
jesmyth.co.uk
Graham Greene and Paul Scofield with Phyllis Calvert, 1959.

‘Perhaps when you’re my age you’ll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast. The mind too, but it doesn’t talk about love.’
Two men look at each other, one smiling and one laughing. A woman sits between them and looks up and smiles at one of the men.
October 2, 2025 at 10:13 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
Producer, director and co-founder of the Actors Studio Cheryl Crawford (1902-86) #BOTD with Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams. #legends #herstory
The one the boys are looking at is the one with the most power.
September 24, 2025 at 9:13 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon in Sicily, 1963. 💔
On a sunny day, a woman in a red top and striped capris smiles at the camera, on one side of a donkey. A man in jeans stands on the other side of the donkey and is absorbed in stroking its forehead. The donkey looks content.
September 24, 2025 at 5:55 AM
jesmyth.co.uk
With one image, explain the difference between a Frenchman and an Englishman….👇
Alain Delon and Marianne Faithfull chatting. The waste of space on the right is Mick Jagger.
September 23, 2025 at 12:41 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
What all actors of distinction sniff to block out the smell of a visiting studio executive…
September 9, 2025 at 4:56 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
Elordi usually very pretty but the poster makes him look like a neck-less George Lazenby.

There is only one Heathcliff. 👇
Olivier/Heathcliff
September 3, 2025 at 8:47 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
Great interview w/ Leslie Kreiner Wilson about Hollywood screenwriter #MaryCMcCallJr in the latest #Americana. 🙏 We discussed the origin of the pipe & 🍺 📖 cover photo 👇, her writing style, regrets, and why being Irish helped her career! 🎥 #skystorians

americanpopularculture.com/journal/arti...
September 3, 2025 at 6:42 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
The brothers in summertime.
John, David and Richard 🎂 Attenborough.
August 29, 2025 at 7:54 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
It was a beautiful day. And then this happened. My favourite limey. 💔
Just about the most beautiful face of the 20th century.
August 17, 2025 at 4:14 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
The man and his best friend.

#AlfredHitchcock 🎂
AH poses with his Sealyham terrier.
August 13, 2025 at 5:52 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
The only bullfight I ever enjoyed…

#Cantinflas #AroundTheWorldIn80Days
#BOTD
Portrait of a bullfighter with saggy trousers. Cantinflas on set of Around the World in 80 Days, 1955.
August 12, 2025 at 7:14 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
A real English marriage. The happy couple (Maureen 🎂 and Tiger) with the third wheel (Mr Starr), 1965.

The lady was the champ. #fansofMaureenCox
Left, a pretty lady in a spotted minidress sits on a sofa with her mini poodle. Centre, a man stands with his hands in his pockets, looking away from the woman and dog.
August 3, 2025 at 11:18 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
👇 sorry for the delay, @marshacoupe.bsky.social. Was away on a walking tour with the dogs and this was waiting when we got back!
August 3, 2025 at 3:29 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
My print copy hasn’t arrived yet. If it ever does, will send you a snap of page. Whole thing rather lifeless, including Fiennes’ performance, which is a shame because Irving was more than a pedantic bore. Here is the OG with Fussie— the love of his life (gift of E. Terry).
Sir Henry Irving smiling, holding his terrier Fussie. And Fussie is wearing Henry’s glasses.
July 12, 2025 at 10:52 AM
jesmyth.co.uk
Where has the time gone?

⭐️ 🩷 #Ringo #HappyBirthday
Mr Starkey and his emotional support animal take a cigarette break during a press conference, June, 1964.
July 7, 2025 at 4:57 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
Paul Scofield on location in Spain for his first film with Olivia de Havilland, #BOTD. He preferred the theatre…
A bored man and a smiling woman.
July 1, 2025 at 9:09 AM
jesmyth.co.uk
Ian Holm with daughter Jessica in 1962, while Holm was rehearsing his role as Puck in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at Stratford.

He is missed. 💔 #theatre #Shakespeare #Puck
A man in a suit holds his daughter on his shoulder. Both are screaming with laughter. They are outside and you can just see the Avon River to the left of the image.
June 19, 2025 at 9:55 AM
jesmyth.co.uk
The legend plays another legend.
🎂 #EileenAtkins
Eileen Atkins as Virginia Woolf.
June 16, 2025 at 10:06 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
Fred Zinnemann on the set of the only adaptation you will ever need to see of ‘The Day of the Jackal’, by Frederick Forsyth.

#filmsky
Fred Zinnemann on the set of The Day of the Jackal with his fake de Gaulle.
June 9, 2025 at 5:07 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
If only someone had done this to Andrew Sarris before 1962. 👇

#filmsky #wildbill #auteurs
Director Wild Bill Wellman enduring a publicity stunt for his 1937 film, Nothing Sacred. Yes, that’s a straight jacket.
May 26, 2025 at 11:09 AM
jesmyth.co.uk
“I’m dead behind these eyes. I’m dead, just like the whole inert, shoddy lot out there. It doesn’t matter because I can’t feel a thing, and neither do they.”

Laurence Olivier, #BOTD
LO as Archie Rice.
May 22, 2025 at 6:27 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
Mary C. McCall Jr.’s screen crush and Hollywood union colleague, Robert Montgomery, #BOTD. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild when it was finally recognised by the film industry.

If you haven’t seen him in ‘Night Must Fall’…you’re missing something.
Three-quarter shot of Beauty with a cigarette, circa 1937.
May 21, 2025 at 6:34 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
“God made man, and then said ‘I can do better than that’ and made woman.” - Adela Rogers St. Johns (May 20, 1894 - August 10, 1988)

#BOTD #writers #screenwriters #HollywoodFeminists #herstory #filmsky
The writer and Clark Gable
May 20, 2025 at 5:40 PM
jesmyth.co.uk
Have you read this one? 👇
Takes down English education (management, teachers, kids and parents) with style.
1st edition book cover for Harpole Report by JL Carr.
May 20, 2025 at 5:16 PM