Carole & Co.

For the past two years, our Christmas Day entry has featured a Carole Lombard holiday photo along with several Christmas-themed pics from her friends and contemporaries. We continue that tradition this year, with the Lombard image one from 1927 or '28, when she was working for Mack Sennett and Pathe and was more renowned for her figure and legs than any inherent acting ability. (That would soon change.)

So there's Carole...now let's get to the "company." We'll begin with a few of Lombard's friend Jean Harlow, first from Christmas 1933...



...then, Christmas 1934...



...and from the last Christmas Jean would live to see, 1936:



Here's Harlow as holiday hostess:



Now, some Christmas photos from some other stars of the era. You don't think Bette Davis would pose for a shot like this, but she did -- and it's charming:



How about a Marxist Christmas with the one, the only -- Groucho? Hooray for Santa Spalding, hooray, hooray, hooray...



The still-blonde Joan Bennett, cat in lap and Christmas storybook in hand:



Now, another Joan (Crawford), admiring a holiday wreath:



Meanwhile, MGM cohort Hedy Lamarr is photographed within a wreath:



Alice Faye is photographed with gifts at the door; are they for Tony Martin or Phil Harris?



Paulette Goddard under the Christmas tree (though we don't know whether it's at Charlie Chaplin's residence or Burgess Meredith's):



Anyone want to get in a snowball fight with a young Rita Hayworth?



MGM starlet Virginia Grey serves up some 1935 cheesecake:



Let's go back to the '20s for Christmas publicity, such as Louise Brooks with a tiny holiday tree:



Nancy Carroll, one of the first stars of the sound era, hugs a teddy instead of wearing one:



As for Norma Shearer, she made the transition to talkies and became a pre-Code favorite:



And Rin Tin Tin, for a time Warners' biggest star of the silent era, celebrated Christmas too:



Here are a few multiple star shots -- first, Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, presumably for the Christmas-themed "Remember The Night":



From "The Shop Around The Corner," James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan decorate a store window:



And from a 1932 Christmas party, two actors whom I always link to each other...Ginger Rogers and Boris Karloff:



To close, two Christmas photos of Los Angeles. First, from 1937, Santa and his reindeer over Wilshire Boulevard, looking east:



This is a recent photo of Union Station, but it probably had a similar feel during its first Christmas in 1939:



Even if you don't celebrate Christmas as part of your faith, I think nearly all of us would echo the thought of peace on earth that the holiday has come to symbolize. So as the song goes, have yourself a merry little Christmas now.