My new iPad desktop & wallpaper

seriously, this is my new iPad desktop wallpaper! But it is Hedy Lamarr and not Myrna Loy. Thanks for the correction C.P. Thomas!

[UPDATE:  This is a first, starting a post off with a mistake in the VERY FIRST LINE! BUT alas, I will blame Google Images for leading me astray (I should of known better, but it's easier to blame in this case. ha) ... to think that the first image is Myrna Loy, when in fact it is Hedy Lamarr.... Which really makes the rest of this post kind of null.... But I'm keeping Hedy as my screen saver, and I'm staying inspired by Myrna, and I'm keeping the post as is. With my mistake front and center. If I'm going to make a big one like that, it might as well be getting two gorgeous girls confused. NOW TO BE CONTINUED....]

AND STYLE MUSE....

MYRNA LOY

Well, she's not new... but my discovery of her is. I had heard of Myrna Loy before, in passing, like I had heard of other great, famous Hollywood actresses from the Golden Age of movies, but that was all.

c.1934

It wasn't until I actually saw a movie with her in it, just last week, and I was STAR STRUCK by Loy, AND her leading male counter-part: a young (and quite dashing) Clark Gable. The film was Wife Versus Secretary, made in 1936 and also starred Jean Harlow.  

These string of movies solidified the success of MGM's most popular actor of the time, Gable. (Embarrassing enough, I had only previously seen Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind. And truthfully, I never understood what all the 'fuss was about' regarding Gable -- until I watched Manhattan Melodrama. He is mesmerizing... and NOTHING like Rhett Butler at all. He is charming, witty, young and plausible.) By the time this movie was filmed,  Loy had been acting for more than 10 years.  Her first movie - What Price Beauty - was made in 1925.

Between 1934 and 1939 Myrna Loy had made 21 movies, including Parnell, also with Clark Gable. During the release of Parnell, Gable & Loy were basically King and Queen of the Hollywood Studios. Myrna also starred with Clark Gable in Test Pilot and Too Hot to Handle, both filmed in 1938. 

Myrna Williams, 1918

In 1905,  Myrna was born Myrna Williams in Montana. Her first name was given to her by her father after a train station that he liked the name of. (This is not that uncommon for that age. My father-in-law, born in 1920 was named after a tractor his mother saw in a field after giving birth). Myrna was a mix of Welsh and Scottish ancestry, and at the age of 12 she made her first stage appearance in a dance she had choreographed herself.

“I was a homely kid with freckles that came out every spring and stuck on me till Christmas.” Myrna Loy

In 1918, when she was thirteen her father died, she moved to Los Angeles with her mother and brother. She soon signed with the studios, along with the enormous wave of other new actresses. In 1925 Myrna changed her last name to Loy and was cast in her first Warner Bros. Picture, What Price of Beauty?, a silent film, and she was cast as 'Vamp', a role that for a time she would be typecast as, portraying other forms of exotic women and mistresses. 

“Some perfect wife I am. I’ve been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can’t boil an egg.” ~ Myrna Loy referring to her perfect wife typecasting

(Myrna WAS actually married four times, her first marriage lasting 8 years in 1936 and her last marriage lasting 9 years, divorcing in 1960). 

When the talking pictures era, Myrna's characters began to distinguish themselves from one another. She appeared as a chorus girl in the original The Jazz Singer (1927). In Manhattan Melodrama (1934) and then had her first leading role in 1934's The Thin Man.

When WWII broke out, she temporarily left her acting career to focus on the war effort, working closely with the Red Cross. She toured frequently to raise war bonds, and was so outspokenly against Hitler that her name appeared on his blacklist. (If I was going to have my name appear on anyone's blacklist, that'd be the one I'd want to be on. Go Myrna!)

After the war ended, her movie career slowed. She returned to acting, but it was mostly in stage productions. 

In 1965 she received an award for her work in the Chicago Theatre, and in 1988 she was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Kennedy Center. She was never nominated for an Academy Award, but in 1991 received an Academy Honorary Award for her career achievement. This was her last public appearance.

Myrna had breast cancer twice in her life (1975 and 1979) and had a mastectomy. She died in 1993 during surgery.

I highly suggest you TIVO her movies or download them, as she is mesmerizing, and such a style icon in my opinion. Exotic yet delicate at the same time. Funny without being situational.