Be My Guest: Laura (Part One)

For this month my guest is Laura from the excellent blog Laura's Miscellaneous Musings. I told her I would be breaking down her responses in sections, as I was adding my thoughts and pics with her answers. So here we go;

Monty: Who are your Top 5 favorite actors/actresses?

Laura: It's very difficult for me to narrow down a list of "favorites" to 5; I had trouble making a list Top 20 Favorite Actors and Actresses for a set of blog posts a couple of years ago! I'm going to go with Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, Robert Montgomery, Loretta Young, and Ginger Rogers.

Monty: OK, you had me at Cary. As you know Cary is my all time favorite. I like your selections of Montgomery and Rogers as well.

Monty: Describe in detail why your number 1 favorite actor/actress is your favorite.

Laura: Cary Grant is my favorite simply because...he's Cary Grant! Probably not much more that needs to be said . He was in a remarkable string of highly watchable films for roughly 3 decades; I've seen most of his movies. One of the most striking things about his films is their "rewatch" value. I've probably seen repeat viewings of Grant's films more than those of any other actor. He's also one of the first actors I remember watching on TV when I was very young.

Monty: I agree with you Laura on the rewatch value of Grant's films. I can watch his films over and over again.


Monty: What is your absolute favorite movie?

Laura: My very favorite movie is SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS (1954), followed closely by THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) and MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944).

Monty: I see you are very much into musicals Laura. That's great.

Monty: Describe your first classic movie experience.

Laura: It's actually hard to remember my first classic movie experience because I grew up loving old movies from a very early age, as described in this post. My mother used to watch Ben Hunter's Movie Matinee, a Southern California program which ran old movies every weekday at noon. She especially liked Fred and Ginger, as well as Cary Grant movies. Thanks to my parents, I saw films in L.A. revival theaters countless times growing up. My earliest experiences seeing films in revival theaters were double bills of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN and THE BAND WAGON, and later ON THE TOWN and SUMMER STOCK. As I got older, my dad helped grow my love of old movies by providing me with dozens of books on the subject.

Monty: Awesome story of your classic movie experiences Laura.

I will stop here for the first part of Laura's guest stint on my blog. I hope to do the other parts every few days. I'm glad she accepted by invite to come by and chat with me. Hope everyone enjoyed this first part. More to come.