Tag: Billie Dove

  • Billie Dove and the End of a Nagging Question

    Billie Dove and the End of a Nagging Question

    It was one subject I couldn’t bring up to Billie Dove.  What I wanted to ask was, “Billie, how old are you?”  Well, I would have never asked it in those exact words. But I wanted to clear up the question of her year of birth.  To a researcher determined to set the record straight, asking…

  • If Looks Were All It Took

    If dashing looks were all it took to make a go of it in Hollywood, Robert “Bob” Kenaston Jr., the son of silent film actress Billie Dove, would have been one of the screen’s top matinee idols of the ’50s and ’60s. In the looks department, he was right up there with Rock Hudson, John…

  • What’s a year or two here and there?

    I learned early in my career, which started as a newspaper reporter in the mid-1980s, to save the tough questions until the end of an interview. If there were delicate inquiries that could potentially cause my subject to pull the plug on the conversation, hang up the phone, or show me the door, I waited…

  • Dove Tails — Lee, Billie, and the Rest of the Story

        Billie Dove’s disappointing experience with Blondie of the Follies (1932) was a factor in prompting her to leave films. The film centered on the Follies rivalry of two showgirls and friends, Blondie (Marion Davies) and Lottie (Billie). Before the last scene was filmed, William Randolph Hearst, Marion’s companion and financier, called a halt to…

  • Dove Tales — Tinseltown, Here I Come!

    In early 1933, silent film Billie Dove actress ducked out of sight after her public affair with Howard Hughes several years before. Billie slipped away with her current flame, rancher Robert “Bob” Kenaston. She was away for over three months. When her train stopped in Chicago, Billie and Lee Heidorn, her fan club president, met…

  • Dove Tails — Meeting Jean Harlow and other Adventures of a Fan Club President

    Not long after Lee Heidorn took over the running of Billie Dove’s fan club, she met one of her all-time favorite movie stars.  Living in Chicago afforded Lee the opportunity to meet many who were making personal appearances along with the opening of their pictures. Said Lee,  “It was surprising to find that very few…

  • Dove Tales – How Lenore Became Billie’s Fan Club President

    Shortly after Lenore Heidorn became Billie Dove’s fan club president and started a lifelong friendship with the movie actress, Billie presented her an autographed portrait: “To you, Lenore, from me.” ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥ In July 1994, not long after my first interview with silent film actress Billie Dove was published in my Classic Images column, Billie’s…

  • Dove Tales – Let’s Go!

    Dove Tales was the official organ of the Billie Dove Fan Club, an organization that had its roots in the late 1920s. Dedicated to one of Hollywood’s most ravishing movie stars of the 1920s, Billie Dove, the club remained in existence until the death of its long-time president, Lenore Heidorn Foote, in 1999. Lenore, or…

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