This Month

Author and Hollywood historian Carla Valderrama has helped bring stories from Classic Hollywood to the forefront of a new generation with her popular Instagram accounts @ThisWasHollywood and @ThisWasFashion, and now she’s expanding beyond social media with her debut book This Was Hollywood. A compelling and visually stunning catalogue detailing the lost history and little-known stories of the movies, This Was Hollywood will bring studio secrets and playful anecdotes from Hollywood’s past into the present, including stories that detail how Rin Tin Tin saved Warner Bros., the death of Rudolph Valentino, the forgotten sex symbol Sessue Hayakawa and much more.

Valderrama will join TCM primetime host Ben Mankiewicz for a co-hosted night of movies featuring key figures highlighted in Valderrama’s book. Movies presented on this night include:

Body and Soul (1947) starring Blacklisted actor John Garfield in an Oscar-nominated performance as a talented boxer whose morals are tempted by an unethical promoter who takes interest in his.

The Sign of the Ram (1948) starring actress Susan Peters who used a wheelchair for the latter part of her career, most significantly in this film as a manipulative wife and mother who interferes in the love lives of her stepchildren.

Stormy Weather (1943), the musical biopic loosely based on and starring Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and featuring an unforgettable performance by The Nicholas Brothers.

Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940), the fourth and final film in the Broadway Melody series starring the immensely talented Eleanor Powell who danced alongside Fred Astaire.

Tune in for details on the stories behind the scenes of these films and get your copy of Valderrama’s This Was Hollywood today.