Saturday, March 27, 2010

1940s Movie Stars - William "Bill" Carter


Yes, I've been perusing my late sister-in-laws collection of movie star photos again. All of the ones below are of an actor named William (or Bill) Carter -- whom I have never heard of. Actually, at first glance, I thought they were photos of Rock Hudson.

What do you notice about these pictures? Anything? Anything at all? (I'll wait....)









Here's what I noticed. The autographs. All three of them are in a different handwriting. I wonder if my sister-in-law noticed that? She must have been a fan, given the fact that there are three photos of him, and I think that she, like the rest of the young girls who wrote fan letters to their favorite stars, would have wanted to believe that he actually signed them. Alas, they don't call Hollywood a "dream factory" for nothing.

5 comments:

Liz Flaherty said...

That was the thing I noticed, too, and I never notice ANYthing.

Cheryl said...

Handsome though he was, I couldn't find any info about a movie star named William or Bill Carter. A Google search only turned up my page and a couple of movie characters named "Bill Carter." He must have been the proverbial flash in the pan despite his "Rock Hudson" look. I guess he was ten years too early.

Kris said...

Bill Carter's most famous contribution to popular culture was being the inspiration for the song "Wedding Bell Blues" when he was married to heiress Trink Wiman (John Deere) and dating singer Helen Merrill. Ms. Merrill was related to a young then teenaged songwriter named Laura Nyro who wrote the song about Ms. Merrill's frustration in being unable to marry Bill in her song. Ironically, in the end Mr. Carter divorced Ms. Wiman and left Ms. Merrill to marry actress Elaine Stewart.

Cheryl said...

Thanks for the update, Kris. Very interesting!

Ludovica said...

Helen Merrill's son Alan wrote and originally recorded the song I Love Rock n Roll, with his band Arrows, in 1975. Joan Jett had a huge hit with her cover version