There’s a little Hollywood around all of us. Literally.
Ang Lee, Director of Life of Pi and David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook each received 2013 Academy Award nominations in advance of the big event Sunday– and both men have local connections.
Ang Lee lives in Mamaroneck, on Hommocks Road, and David O. Russell is said to have grown up in Larchmont in a house on Mountain Avenue.
Plenty of Hollywood actors and directors precede them.
Film and TV actor Michael O’Keefe grew up at 8 Woodbine in Larchmont. Dan Futterman, who won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Capote, grew up in Larchmont, and graduated from Mamaroneck High School in 1985. Matt Dillon and younger brother Kevin, both actors, grew up in Mamaroneck.
This history goes way back to the earliest days of some local communities. In the 1910s and 20s, actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks summered in Larchmont when it was a summer colony for rich City dwellers. Later, DW Griffith built studios in Mamaroneck on what is now Flagler Drive…the Barrymores were there down off Taylors Lane.
What Hollywood types can you tell us about that spent time locally?
Yup David Russell (he didn’t really use the “O” back then) was in my class at MHS.
I own the home David O. Russell grew up in. Its not in that picture, its a few houses down the road. The mailing address is Larchmont, but technically, as Mr. Russell says he grew up in Mamaroneck.
An old story has it that Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio honeymooned at a house that formerly stood on a property between Weaver Street and West Brookside.
I think that’s right. the house was torn down c. 2003 to much protest. One had/has to cross the brook by bridge to enter the property
Joan Rivers…..another Larchmont Loud Mouth!
You forgot Jay Gatsby!
A lot of people don’t realize that before there was a Hollywood, there was New
Rochelle: At the turn of the 20th century Westchester County was at the
creative center of American cinema, and the “Queen City on the Sound” was home
to the Thanhouser Studio, which cranked out more than 1,000 films between 1909
and 1917. Thanhouser often used the city as a backdrop for its films, even turning
its cameras on itself when the studio caught fire. (The result was a 1913
title, “When the Studio Burned.”) Thanhouser also shot footage around Larchmont
Gardens, where the pond and waterfall have changed little since “Her Nephews
from Labrador” was filmed there in 1913. The Thanhouser studio occupied the
site on Main Street where Tedesco Auto Body now stands.