Spotlight on Think Like A Man

Comedian Steve Harvey's best selling book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man was recently made into a movie and follows the lives of four men who take the self-help tome's advice to heart. Under the name Think Like a Man, the battle of the sexes style comedy featured some very attractive interiors designed for some very distinct personalities ranging from a colorful fresh "rocker" palette for Mya (Meagan Good) who is in the music industry to upscale sophistication for Lauren (Taraji P. Henson) who is  the head of Essence Magazine. Production designer Chris Cornwell and set decorator Beth Wooke and had both the luxury and challenge of shooting in mostly empty locations throughout Los Angeles and with a limited budget.

The Culver City apartment of Jerry Ferrara's character Jeremy (you may recall him as Turtle in HBO's hilarious series Entourage) and Kristen (actress Gabrielle Union) gets a redo in the film as the couple are living together and his favorite mementos (comic book hero toys and beat up sofa) are lovingly replaced. HD Buttercup, a Los Angeles home furnishings store, has their moment in the spotlight as Kristen hires a decorator from the store. I particularly like the artwork chosen by Wooke for "its calming cool ocean feel" (think Rothko at the beach) which can be found through Hollywood's Art Pic. The white screen, taupe and blue patterned pillows from Lillian August, floor lamps and most of the contemporary furniture pieces are from HD Buttercup  in Los Angeles.

Lauren's  apartment with its incredible view was staged and filmed on the 44th floor of the Ritz Carlton. The sectional coffee table and lamps along with the faux fur throw from Timothy Oulton can also be found at HD Buttercup. "Lauren is very successful and powerful so we picked furnishing that almost felt masculine at times but with colors that complemented her complexion beautifully (aubergine velvet walls!)" notes Wooke on the set's interior design.

The framed print on the bedroom wall is from New Century's "Tonic Series" and can be purchased at Blueprint Furniture. End tables and acrylic chair are available at HD Buttercup. Calvin Klein and DKNY bed linens are from Macy's and bench from Schumacher. Since the designers were not allowed to paint, they created an 8' by 12' velvet headboard to cover the wall, just one of the many tricks of the set decorator trade. The stunning wood floor is from the Ritz and the and the residence can be yours for a cool 10 million. Here is hoping you purchased Facebook stock.

Photo Credits: Screen Gems

Happy Mother's Day, Cinema Style

Whether your mom cleaned the house and baked cookies in pearls....
or scolded you for wire hangers in your closet....wish her a Happy Mother's Day.

Photo Credits: Universal Home Entertainment, Paramount Pictures

Happy Birthday Candice Bergen

She's been an actress, author, photojournalist, mother and style icon since she appeared on the scene in the sixties. At the age of 66, she is still an inspiration. Happy 66th birthday Candice Bergen.

She made her screen debut in the book turned film
 The Group as Lacey

Mike Nichol's controversial film Carnal Knowledge with Art Garfunkel
 and Jack Nicholson  was one of her most important films

Bergen's Swedish genes helped her modeling career

Bergen's autobiography written almost three decades ago.
 Rumor has it she will pen another for publication later this year.

With her late husband French film director Louis Malle at their 1980 wedding in France

With co-star Jacqueline Bisset in Rich and Famous

Bergen in television's eighties sitcom Murphy Brown as a single mother and television reporter

As lawyer Shirley Schmidt on ABC's Boston Legal 

Bergen today at 66

For more on Bergen, check out Stylelist's Candice Bergen Style Evolution: From Model to Murphy Brown.

Hollywood Sets the Scene

I try not to make it a regular practice to cut and paste from the magazines but I suppose it's okay to take the liberty when your work is mentioned. I have been busy on the lecture circuit this month (ten planes and counting) and have not been able to post as usual so I hope you enjoy the lst dibs article on Hollywood Sets the Scene in their Eye on Design article series.

And while I am on the subject of lectures, I will be speaking at New York's Art and Antique Dealers League Show at the Park Avenue Armory this Friday at 3:00 p.m. on Designs on Film and a century of design in the movies (book signing to follow). If you are in the area, hope to see you there!

Many thanks to all of you who attended my lecture in Chicago...SRO! Great show and enjoyed meeting you all. And thank you Mary Ahern for the wonderful luncheon, what a fun group of women!

Photo Credits: AMC/Mad Men

Designing with JT

Design inspiration comes from some of the most interesting sources. Recent case in point -- Justin Timberlake. And why not? He is one of the most creative forces on the scene so
curating a collection of home furnishings with Beachmint might prove to be a natural.

Launched as "Homemint," a collection of home goods and art curated by JT and interior designer Estee Stanley, the line can be found at the website and launches this spring.
Stanley is JT's interior designer and her work also graces the homes of Olsen twins Mary Kate and Ashley and Nicole Ritchie. She started her career as a fashion stylist fifteen years ago and one of the rare designers fortunate to work in both worlds. You can see more of her unique interiors here.

Stanley and Timberlake

Stanley designed interior in Beverly Hills

Shoppers are able to purchase products at the site online or pay a monthly membership fee of $9.99 to receive member pricing. Items will range from $10.00 for accessories up to the thousands for artwork.

It will be interesting to see how this line is received. I still say his collaboration with Jimmy Fallon and his Saturday Night Live song 3-Way (The Golden Rule) is some of his best work!

Photo Credits: Homemint, Elle Decor, People Magazine, Estee Stanley

Coming Soon to a Store Near You

If the number of personal emails I received after writing a post on the designs of The Good Wife is any indication, this new venture should be a huge winner.

CBS has teamed up with home furnishings retailer Mitchell Gold and Interlude Home to create a line of home decor inspired by the hit show. Developed in collaboration with the show's set decorator Beth Kushnick, the furniture line will debut this fall in Mitchell Gold stores nationwide along with Interlude Home's accessories and lighting collection in stores and online. The venture was announced at the High Point market this past week.

The Golden Globe winning show's intriguing storyline and great ensemble cast has generated a huge following and the designs caused such a stir that Beth decided to create a blog to answer fan questions. It was inevitable that a furniture and accessory line would follow.

Congratulations to Beth and very well deserved! Now if someone can only knock off Diane Lockhart's wardrobe, I would be very happy.

And speaking of Chicago (where the show takes place), I am the keynote speaker for the International Antiques Show on Friday, April 27th at 10:00 am at the Merchandise Mart. The lecture is sponsored by Traditional Home and I will be speaking on my book Designs on Film.  For more information, see the show's website.

And if you are in Baltimore, I am speaking Monday evening at Towson University. Many thanks to all of the Women of Chapman who came out for my event in Orange County this past week.

P.S. I have finally joined the revolution  -- Cinema Style in on Pinterest.

Photo Credits: CBS

Miami's Magic City

All the glitz and glamour of Miami Beach circa 1959 is captured in Magic City, the highly stylized period drama and newest entry to the sixties themed genres. (Think Mad Men meets the Mob in Miami).

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Grey's Anatomy) as Ike Evans

Magic City is the tale of hotel owner Ike Evans (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan who easily could be Javier Bardem's younger brother) who builds one of the largest mid century modern structures in the city. The fictitious Miramar Playa is the place where one can rub shoulders with the likes of mafia kingpin Sam Giancana (or be rubbed out), JFK, the Rat Pack or a well-to-do family of four on vacation. Evans sells his soul to Ben "The Butcher" Diamond (Danny Huston) in order to keep the hotel afloat. Lots of plot twists, family dramas, sumptuous costumes, period soundtrack....and some of the best production design I have seen on television.

The gleaming gold Lapidus inspired lobby

Production designer and architect Carlos Barbosa and set decorator Scott Jacobsen literally channeled Miami Mid Century Modern (known as MiMo) hotels of the period such as the Eden Roc, Deauville (where producer Mitch Glazer worked as a cabana boy) and the famed Fontainebleu. Heavily influenced by the late architect Morris Lapidus who transformed the shoreline of Miami with his work, the production team literally transformed a warehouse into a grand hotel in a mere five months.

The Atlantis Lounge complete with a view of the mermaids

You can read more in my article "The Sets of Magic City"  for Architectural Digest. For more on the costumes, check out the LA Times piece on costume designer Carol Ramsey. Be sure and catch  Magic City on Starz Channel on Friday nights at 9 pm central -- I caught the sneak premiere last week and completely hooked. You will completely be taken back in time. Look out Mad Men.

The Men of Magic City

Photo Credits: Carlos Barbosa, Starz

Before there was Mad Men...

...there was The Best of Everything. And perhaps the poster below says it all.

Novelist Rona Jaffe's 1958 bestseller turned 1959 film was the story of young career women in a pre-women's liberated Manhattan. Hope Lange plays Caroline Bender, an Ivy League graduate who toils away in the dead-end secretarial typing pool at Fabian Publications and fears her aspirations will turn her into the wicked book editor Amanda Farrow (Joan Crawford). Caroline lives with fellow secretaries April (Diane Baker) who is biding her time until Mr. Right comes along and Gregg (Suzy Parker), an aspiring actress. 

Mad Men's Don Draper reading the popular novel

The "yarn" as it was called in the sixties (today it would be a chick flick) has it all - a ruthless single female boss having an empty affair, lecherous lotharios, sexual and office politics, stalking, lots of alcohol and an unwed pregnancy thrown in for good measure. Signs of the times and an obvious precursor to Mad Men.

The parallels of Jaffe and her ambitious heroine Caroline are similar. The Radcliffe grad worked her way up from filing clerk to Associate Editor at Fawcett Publications and later became a contributing writer at Cosmopolitan for one of the female publishing pioneers Helen Gurley Brown (whose book Sex and the Single Girl placed her at the front of the feminist movement). Putting her successful career first, Jaffe never married.

Crawford as book editor Amanda Farrow

While her role was small, Joan Crawford was the biggest star in the film. In the autumn of her career at the age of 55 (hey, it was and is Hollywood) and recently widowed (Chairman Al Steele of Pepsi), the Mildred Pierce star apparently lived up to her "no wire hangers" image on set. As the story goes, she would arrive with a large Pepsi thermos filled with ice and 140 proof Vodka along with a small black alligator bag filled with jewels. Her entourage was always in tow and the set was kept cold to preserve her makeup. Often accompanied by her twelve-year-old twins, no one was allowed to speak to her until she spoke to them first. The film also marked Crawford's first supporting role since her days in early Hollywood and many think she took for financial reasons (hence, the Vodka). 

The film, designed by Jack Martin Smith. Mark-Lee Kirk and Lyle Wheeler, was set in New York's Seagrams Building at 375 Park Avenue. Designed by architect Mies Van Der Rohe, the International Style structure was considered the world's most expensive structure at the time. The interiors were built on the soundstage at Twentieth Century Fox and reportedly influenced by the sparse, utilitarian offices of Pocket Books who published the novel. 

Lange and Crawford

The secretarial pool takes a smoking break under the watchful eye of Mad Men's Joan in a similar set

Suzy Parker and her Royal typewriter

If the term supermodel were around in the early sixties, it would have applied to Suzy Parker who plays the supporting role of Gregg. Best known for her modeling work for Revlon and Coco Chanel, she was a muse to photographer Richard Avedon and one of the first to earn $100,000 a year. She also starred in films Ten North Frederick (1958) with Gary Cooper and had a cameo in Funny Face (1957) with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. 

Parker modeling for Vogue in Paris

No apartment was complete without a bar in the sixties

The film also starred Robert Evans as the unscrupulous playboy Dexter Key who hooks up with April (Diane Baker, shown above). A former Paramount studio chief who successfully produced film classics such as Love Story, Rosemary's Baby, The Godfather and Chinatown, he was also known for his discovery and subsequent marriage to Ali MacGraw.

Parker with Louis Jordan as director and love interest David Savage

Brian Aherne plays the office lech "Fred Shalimar"

Stephen Boyd as editor Mike Rice

The film was shot on location in Central Park, Sheridan Square
 and the exterior of the Seagrams Building and on the Fox soundstage 

You have to wonder when Hollywood will do a remake...or was that Sex and the City?
And for those of you unaware and possibly living on the planet Mars, Mad Men is back this Sunday, March 25th on AMC. Finally the wait is over for season five....and don't even think about calling me after 9:00/8:00 p.m. Central.

Photo Credits: AMC, Twentieth Century Fox