I am pleased to announce that I will once again be speaking at the Penn Hills and Plum Libraries this spring.

I’ve got three brand new talks and I’ll be reprising my talk on the feud between Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine at the Plum Library.

History of the Oscars

Tuesday, April 15 at 6:00 pm. Penn Hills Library

From their inaugural ceremony in 1929, the Oscars have been the most coveted prize in film, and a source of endless fascination to movie fans.  This talk will explore the history of the Academy Awards (including why the statue is called “Oscar”), celebrate the biggest winners and delve into the juiciest moments and feuds.  We’ll also discuss why recent Oscar-nominated films have not had the cultural impact of their predecessors.

Registration Open! Click here to reserve your seat.

The Dueling De Havillands: Hollywood’s Juiciest Sibling Rivalry (Back by popular demand!)

Sisters Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine were both accomplished actresses, starring in such classics as Gone With the Wind and Rebecca.  They also had a lifelong feud.

What was fact and what was exaggerated to sell magazines?  Did Olivia rebuff Joan’s congratulations when she won an Oscar?  Did they go years without speaking after Joan made a cutting public remark about Olivia’s first husband?

And why did the 101 year old Olivia sue the 2017 series Feud over its portrayal of her relationship with her sister?

Find out all this and more!

Hollywood in the Steel City

Thursday, May 15 at 6:00 pm. Penn Hills Library

Pittsburgh has played a constant and underappreciated role in the film industry.  Hollywood has always made movies in Pittsburgh—everything from the Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs (1991) and The Deer Hunter (1978) to blockbusters Striking Distance (1993) and The Dark Knight Rises (2008).  Pittsburgh was also the site of Night of the Living Dead (1968), the independent film that practically invented the low budget zombie film.  We’ll celebrate all these films and more during this talk on Pittsburgh film that will cover the country’s first Nickelodeon theater opening on Smithfield Street in 1905 all the way to the present day.

Magic Onscreen and Off:  Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy

Thursday, June 12 at 6:00 pm. Penn Hills Library

No one did the battle of the sexes better than Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.  They verbally sparred across nine films—classic bickering rivals who fall in love in the final reel.  Offscreen, their decades long romance was an open secret in Hollywood.  Spencer Tracy was separated from his wife but his Catholicism prohibited divorce, yet the never married Katharine Hepbun was devoted to him.  They were a team as pefect as any they portrayed—he kept her haughty nature in check and she helped him control his drinking.  This talk will cover their careers, focusing on the films they made together, and their offscreen lives.