57 Rare Behind-the-Scenes Pics From Iconic Movies and TV Shows
Pop-culture from a perspective you seldom see.
Published 7 months ago in Wow
Pop-culture from a perspective you seldom see.
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This promotional photo of Jack Nicholson in the "Here's Johnny!" moment in The Shining was what got him cast as the Joker. In 1980, Michael Uslan, who would go on to executive produce all the Batman films, picked up a copy of the New York Post, and when he opened up the movie section, he saw this photo of Nicholson, which was advertising that The Shining was opening that weekend. Uslan, who had bought the film rights for Batman the year prior, immediately thought that Nicholson was the only one who could play the Joker. When he got home, he tore the photo from the paper and drew the Joker's face over it using Wite-Out and markers. The drawing, indeed, looks a lot like the Joker from the film:7
Popular Hollywood movies being adapted into Broadway musicals is not a new phenomenon. In 1970, one of the greatest films of all time, All About Eve, was adapted into the popular musical Applause, with Lauren Bacall in the role of Margo Channing (who was iconically portrayed by Bette Davis in the film). Below are some photos of the production when it was adapted for a CBS television special:8
In 1966, Breakfast at Tiffany's was adapted into a musical, with Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain as Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak. The show was a huge failure, closing quickly after only four previews on Broadway. Here are a couple of photos of Moore and Chamberlain rehearsing for the show:16
Michael Keaton's Batman wears Nike shoes in Batman and Batman Returns, but there are contradictory reasons why that came to be. According to the assistant costume designer on the 1989 Batman film, one of the producers had struck a product deal with Nike and needed them in the movie, and because they didn't fit stylistically with any of the other characters or background actors, they incorporated them into Batman's costume. While the lead costume designer on the 1989 movie remembers Nike gifting it to them without a tie-in:19
These photos are of the Apple Boutique, a short-lived London store owned by the Beatles. The store was open from December 1967 to July 1968 — closing for several reasons, including too much shoplifting and not being able to make a profit because they sold rather expensive to produce clothes at low prices:24
While Salvador Dalí is an artist who is most associated with the surrealism movement of the '20s and '30s, he was actually still a very active artist at the same time Andy Warhol was in the '60s and '70s (in fact, Dalí outlived Warhol). Below is a photo of the two in 1975, at a screening of the film Shampoo:26
Jackie Kennedy's iconic pink suit is, of course, forever linked to JFK's assassination. However, she wore the suit publicly at least six times before that day. Below is a photo of her wearing it to visit her sister, Lee Radziwill, in London in March 1962, and when the the Maharajah and Maharani of Jaipur visited the White House in October 1962:27
When The Wizard of Oz started filming, the Wicked Witch of West was not as menacing looking as she would be in the final film, with Margaret Hamilton wearing less makeup and a long bob wig. While Judy Garland's Dorothy wore a strawberry blonde wig and a lot of makeup to give her a "baby-doll" look:28
Two weeks' worth of footage was shot with the characters having these looks until the film's director, Richard Thrope, was let go from the film, after MGM executives thought that the scenes he shot "did not have the right air of fantasy about them." The movie was paused and Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West's costumes were redesigned to what we saw in the final film:34
The very first Star Wars spoof was on the Season 3 premiere of the Donny & Marie show in September of 1977 (the film, which opened in May, was still the No. 1 movie in theaters then, and Star Wars mania was in full swing). It featured Donny and Marie as Luke and Leia, Kris Kirstofferson as Han Solo, and Redd Foxx as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and featured dancing Stormtroopers, cheesy jokes, and Chewie hugging Darth Vader:38
Gone With the Wind is a classic and considered one of the greatest films of all time. The film also did a lot of firsts, including being the first color movie to win the Best Picture Oscar and having the first Black actor to be nominated and win an Oscar — which was Hattie McDaniel for Best Supporting Actress. However, one first you might not know is that it was the first film to have its premiere televised (and yes, TVs existed back in the '30s, but they were EXTREMELY rare). Gone With the Wind's New York premiere was televised, and below is a photo from the premiere announcing it:39
The original opening credits for I Love Lucy throughout its run were actually animated. They were changed to the classic satin and heart credits when the show was syndicated (put into reruns), as the animated credits wouldn't work because they incorporated whichever brand was sponsoring that week's episode:42
Before Kermit the Frog became famous as the leader of The Muppets, he was actually well-known for his drag act! He went by "Kermina" and performed a lipsync-comedy act to Rosemary Clooney's "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face." Here's a screenshot of him performing it on The Steve Allen Show in 1956:46
The iconic Hollywood sign was actually built in 1923 to advertise the Hollywoodland real estate development in the hills below it. The sign was originally only supposed to be up for 18 months, but it became a visual symbol of Los Angeles. Throughout most of the Golden Age of Hollywood the Hollywood sign read "Hollywoodland," with the "land" part only being removed in 1949: