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Dark Horse Comics' "Mata Hari" #4, available June 27, 2018, based on the trrue life adventures of the exotic dancer and superspy, is written by Emma Beeby and illustrated by Ariela Kristantina, with a cover by Kristantina:

"...from 'Lady MacLeod' to 'Lady Godiva', 'Mata Hari' looks back at the despair that surrounded her life as a wife and young mother in the Dutch East Indies.

"After a few short years, she leaves it all behind, changes her name, and heads to Paris, joining the 'Cirque'. Mata Hari is born, and the world hasn't seen anything like her before..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Mata Hari"...

Look at all these people who share Charlize Theron's birthday! Our favorite Atomic Blonde isn't even the only South African Oscar winner born on this day. It's quite a day in showbiz history all told. Which of these luminaries will you celebrate today inside your hearts?

Jeanne Moreau as Mata Hari in 1964

1876 Mata Hari, exotic dancer / spy / juicy role for both Greta Garbo & Jeanne Moreau

1884 Billie Burke, Glinda the Good Witch herself (also an Oscar nominated actress for Merrily We Live, 1938)

1901 Yuliya Solntseva, actress/director (the only female to win Best Director at Cannes until Sofia Coppola this summer)

1902 Ann Harding, Oscar nominated actress (Holiday, 1930)

1914 Ted Moore, Oscar winning cinematographer from South Africa

1927 Carl "Alfafa" Switzer of Our Gang fame

1942 Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home Companion

1942 Bj Thomas, singer of the Oscar-winning "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"

1942 Caetano Veloso, singer of the sublime "Cucurrucucú Paloma" which is...

When it comes to posters promoting new seasons of returning shows, we always appreciate a fresh, dedicated photo shoot — as The CW’s Arrow has done to tout Season 5.

RelatedMatt’s Inside Line: Scoop on Arrow, Supernatural and More

The dramatic poster released on Wednesday via social media features Stephen Amell in a hero shot, clad in the latest upgrade to Green Arrow’s costume, previewing “His Fight, His City, His Legacy.”

As revealed in the logline for the new season, Oliver — with Diggle and Thea now out of the mix and Laurel no longer with us (R.I.P.

Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.

Greta Garbo movie 'The Kiss.' Greta Garbo movies on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” performer today, Aug. 26, '15. Now, why would Garbo be considered a silent era rarity? Well, certainly not because she easily made the transition to sound, remaining a major star for another decade. Think Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, William Powell, Fay Wray, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, etc. And so much for all the stories about actors with foreign accents being unable to maintain their Hollywood stardom following the advent of sound motion pictures. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer star, Garbo was no major exception to the supposed rule. Mexican Ramon Novarro, another MGM star, also made an easy transition to sound, and so did fellow Mexicans Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio, in addition to the very British...

Talent is currently being sought for the short film “Margreet.” “Margreet” is a short film that is seeking talent to fill 10 roles, and is inspired by the exotic dancer Mata Hari who was accused of spying for Germany during Wwi. The production is seeking both male and female actors, and will shoot this December in Los Angeles. Auditions will be held Nov. 24 in Hollywood. For more details, check out the casting notice for “Margreet” here, and be sure to check out the rest of our Los Angeles audition listings! Photo: Greta Garbo in 1931’s “Mata Hari”...

Audrey Long, actress in B film noirs and Westerns, and widow of author Leslie Charteris, dead at 92 (photo: Audrey Long publicity shot ca. late '40s) Actress Audrey Long, a leading lady in mostly B crime dramas and Westerns of the '40s and early '50s, and the widow of The Saint creator Leslie Charteris, died "after a long illness" on September 19, 2014, in Virginia Water, Surrey, England. Long was 92. Her death was first reported by Ian Dickerson on the website LeslieCharteris.com. Born on April 14 (some sources claim April 12), 1922, in Orlando, Florida, Audrey Long was the daughter of an English-born Episcopal minister, who later became a U.S. Navy Chaplain. Her early years were spent moving about North America, in addition to some time in Honolulu. According to Dickerson's Audrey Long tribute on the Leslie Charteris site, following acting lessons with coach Dorothea Johnson, whose pupils had also included...

Greta Garbo is a delight in this biopic of the exotic dancer executed for espionage, and the supporting moustaches a special treat

Mata Hari (1931)

Director: George Fitzmaurice

Entertainment grade: B+

History grade: B+

Mata Hari (real name Margaretha Zelle) was an exotic dancer in Paris during the first world war. She was accused of espionage and was executed by firing squad in October 1917.

International relations

It is 1917. Russian aviator Alexis Rosanoff (Ramon Novarro) has an amusing moustache and a strong Mexican accent. This must be very early in 1917: Russia was in turmoil that year, with a revolution in February and the tsar's abdication in March. Fortunately, no sign of that here. Rosanoff is taken by imperial Russian general Serge Shubin (Lionel Barrymore) to see the celebrated Mata Hari dance. In real life, he'd have been disappointed: her final performance was in March 1915.

Performance

"Shiva, I dance for you tonight,...

Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in ‘Mata Hari’: The wrath of the censors (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro in One of the Best Silent Movies.") George Fitzmaurice’s romantic spy melodrama Mata Hari (1931) was well received by critics and enthusiastically embraced by moviegoers. The Greta Garbo / Ramon Novarro combo — the first time Novarro took second billing since becoming a star — turned Mata Hari into a major worldwide blockbuster, with $2.22 million in worldwide rentals. The film became Garbo’s biggest international success to date, and Novarro’s highest-grossing picture after Ben-Hur. (Photo: Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in Mata Hari.) Among MGM’s 1932 releases — Mata Hari opened on December 31, 1931 — only W.S. Van Dyke’s Tarzan, the Ape Man, featuring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, and Edmund Goulding’s all-star Best Picture Academy Award winner Grand Hotel (also with Garbo, in addition to Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, and...

Ramon Novarro is Ben-Hur: The Naked and Famous in first big-budget Hollywood movie saved by the international market (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro: Silent Movie Star.") Turner Classic Movies’ Ramon Novarro Day continues with The Son-Daughter (1933), on TCM right now. Both Novarro and Helen Hayes play Chinese characters in San Francisco’s Chinatown — in the sort of story that had worked back in 1919, when D.W. Griffith made Broken Blossoms with Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess. By 1933, however, the drab-looking, slow-moving The Son-Daughter felt all wrong. (Photo: Naked Ramon Novarro in Ben-Hur.) Directed by the renowned Clarence Brown (who guided Greta Garbo in some of her biggest hits), The Son-Daughter turned out to be a well-intentioned mess, eventually bombing at the box office. And that goes to show that Louis B. Mayer and/or Irving G. Thalberg didn’t always know what the hell they were doing with their stars and properties.

A new exhibition looks at the timeless personal style of one of Hollywood's most famous stars

She famously wanted to be alone, but a new exhibition that opened in London on February 15 offers visitors the chance to get to know a very different side to the mysterious Greta Garbo – by way of her clothes.

Miss G: The Private World of Greta Garbo, curated by fashion journalist and author Bronwyn Cosgrave and jewellery designer Julia Muggenburg, features some surprising items. A vibrantly patterned yoga onesie with matching headband represents Garbo's athletic side. "She was very healthy," says Cosgrave. "She had to maintain her body, so she did yoga. She was an early follower of Joseph Pilates. Yes – before Jane Fonda there was Garbo!"

A rather homely pink-and-white striped cotton apron replete with yellow cooking stains gives visitors a glimpse into a very different side of the enigmatic star, who is...

Her film career was dominated by her role as Emmanuelle

There can be few film actors so closely associated with one role as was Sylvia Kristel, who has died of cancer aged 60. The title role of the sexually adventurous housewife in Emmanuelle (1974) became a reference for every part she played subsequently. This was not surprising, as the Dutch star did play a character called Emmanuelle, with few variations, many times over.

In the original film, Kristel portrayed the bored wife of a French embassy official in Bangkok, urged by her libertine husband to explore all the possibilities of sex. Thereupon, she finds herself in bed with, among others, a lesbian archaeologist and an elderly roué. Directed with some grace by Just Jaeckin, this glossy soft-porn package, dressed up as art-house erotica, was a huge international hit, becoming the first X-rated film to be released in the Us. Lushly photographed and...

Movie Star Ramon Novarro Brutally Killed Halloween Eve 1968 Paul Ferguson, in a letter he wrote me at the time I was working on Beyond Paradise, blamed his Catholic background for Ramon Novarro's death: "When [Novarro] kissed me, I reacted like a Catholic, what they call homosexual panic. Some old guy in the desert says, 'Kill homosexuals.' It's inbred. . . . I was too drunk to be civilized. Whatever my most primitive moral standings were, I reacted. It had nothing to do with Novarro, nothing to do with his being homosexual. It all had to do with how I saw myself. And the fact that my brother was there. And that he could see me in that homosexual act. It all had to do with my Catholic upbringing, with my five thousand years of Moses. And that's the only reason why this whole thing happened. Because that's what society teaches you. . . . I think after I hit Mr.

Ramon Novarro Earlier today, after sharing on Facebook a photo of Greta Garbo dressed in Balinese costume in the 1931 blockbuster Mata Hari, I began thinking about 1920s and 1930s Mexican-born MGM star Ramon Novarro (photo), the subject of the biography I wrote several years back, Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro. Mata Hari was one of the biggest box-office hits in the careers of both Garbo and Novarro; the movie is also notable as the only time Novarro accepted second billing after becoming a star. While thinking of Novarro, I remembered that he was brutally killed on this date, October 30, 43 years ago. The following morning, Halloween 1968, the 69-year-old former movie star was found dead at his Laurel Canyon home in the Hollywood Hills. The next few paragraphs were taken from Beyond Paradise: At 8:30 a.m. on Halloween, October 31, [Novarro's personal secretary] Edward Weber arrived at 3110 Laurel Canyon to report for work.

U.S. And Canada/Opening Wide Salt: Angelina Jolie’s CIA agent goes on the lam after she is accused of being a double agent for a cadre of Russians who miss the Cold War. Cuz the Cold War was so much fun. If you can’t make it to the multiplex, try: • The Fugitive (1993): Harrison Ford’s doctor goes on the run in order to prove his innocence when accused of murder; just as thrilling, if somewhat less plausible, than Salt. • The Hunt for Red October (1990): Alec Baldwin’s mild-mannered CIA analyst is forced to become a field agent when Sean Connery’s Russian sub captain aims his nuclear-armed vessel square at the East Coast of the U.S. • Mata Hari (1931): Classic girl-spy stuff with Greta Garbo as the legendary secret agent. • The Avengers (1961-1969): Choose from Diana Rigg as Emma Peel or Honor Blackman...

Alla Nazimova, Salome (top); Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, Mata Hari (bottom) Alla Nazimova’s Salome, Claudette Colbert’s Cleopatra, Hedy Lamarr’s Delilah, and Greta Garbo’s Mata Hari are the four temptresses featured in the "Ornament and the Enchantress" film series presented by Los Angeles’ J. Paul Getty Museum. Charles Bryant’s Salome (1923); Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra (1934), co-starring Warren William and Henry Wilcoxon; DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949), co-starring Victor Mature; and George Fitzmaurice’s Mata Hari (1931), co-starring Ramon Novarro, will be screened at the Harold M. Williams Auditorium at the Getty Center June 26-27. "Ornament and the Enchantress" will serve as a complement [...]...

Are you celebrating Mexico today?

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

I'm eating tacos for dinner because it's the least I can do. And I'm also perusing amazing photos of Mexican film stars of yore like the deliriously sexy Lupe Vélez and one star of the right now... Señor Bernal of course. Also deliriously sexy. Especially in closeups.

So I thought we'd drool on six of the earliest crossover sensations tonight with a few films of note (for one reason or another) for each of their careers. If you'd like to investigate further, click on the links. Enjoy!

Lupe Vélez The Gaucho, 1927 | Hot Pepper, 1933 | The Girl From Mexico, 1939

Ramon Novarro Scaramouche 1923 | Ben-Hur 1925 | The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, 1927

These silent stars had volatile lives and careers, both ending with tragic deaths. Vélez career was a series of ups and downs and some say she was bipolar. She had several movie star affairs...

Jeanette MacDonald, Ramon Novarro in The Cat and the Fiddle. Photo: Courtesy Matias Bombal Collection. Ramon Novarro: Allan Ellenberger Interview I How would you describe Ramon Novarro the actor? Novarro was a first-rate actor – maybe not an Olivier, but a good solid actor. Even in bad films such as Laughing Boy (1934), he had his moments. He was excellent in dramatic roles such as the aviator Alexis Rosanoff opposite Greta Garbo in Mata Hari (1931), or as the rapist-suitor of Myrna Loy in The Barbarian (1933). He excelled in light comedic moments, especially in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922) and in several of his musicals including The Cat and the Fiddle (1934) and The [...]...