It’s Valentine’s, the international day of love. And never has the spirit of February 14 been depicted better than in Hollywood’s Golden Age.
On-screen and off moviedom’s biggest stars personified romance.
Now to mark the special day, longtime art collector Klaus Moeller gathered a selection of iconic photographs that capture the essence the day and shared them with DailyMail.com.
The treasure trove of rare images are part of Moeller’s impressive array of some 25 million negatives acquired by the CEO’s Globe Entertainment and Media.
‘Looking through these photos is a joy for all generations and all cultures across the world,’ Moeller told DailyMail.com. They are timeless.’
With over 30 years in the art and photography business, the art expert never tired of looking through his countless cabinets of old photos with many still to discover.
‘I never know what I am going to find. It’s always exciting, surprising and fun,’ explained Moeller, who was born in Germany and raised in the south of Portugal before moving to London and eventually making his home in Los Angeles.
When he’s not acquiring archives or discovering new photographs, Moeller can be found at various non-profit charity events where he helps raise funds with his art collections. For the past three decades, he has funded several orphanages around the world and co-created a school for handicapped and blind children, and helped build a center for street children in Thailand.
Barbara Nichols’s feet didn’t touch the ground as she was carried away by Aldo Ray in the 1958 Second World War movie The Naked and the Dead, based on Norman Mailer’s book of the same name
»They say a picture says a thousand words, well this is one of those pictures,’ said Moeller. Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh portrayed doomed couple Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in the 1939 Academy Award winning film. Leigh adored her leading man but complained of his bad breath
Marilyn Monroe teamed up with her Laurence Olivier in the 1957 romantic comedy The Prince and the Showgirl which was also directed and produced by her British co-star. The twosome didn’t see eye to eye during production and as a result Monroe’s admiration for Olivier turned sour, as did her marriage to famed screenwriter Arthur Miller.
Rita Hayworth got in the mood for Valentine’s Day posing with a heart-shaped box of chocolates
Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame joined forces in 1964’s film noir Human Desire. In this steamy photo, sexy leading man leans into the seductive actress on a train. The Canadian actor romanced nearly 150 women, including his co-star Grahame, Angie Dickinson, Marilyn Monroe, and a 40-year relationship with Rita Hayworth
Who could forget Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in the famed 1973 love story, The Way We Were, with its top selling soundtrack. Years later, the songstress would reveal in her 2023 memoir, My Name is Barbra, that Redford was one of her greatest crushes and that she was the one who persuaded the actor to take on the role.
Real life couple Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra, nearly 30 years her senior, exchanged wedding vows in 1966 in Las Vegas. Farrow was just 19 when she met the crooner, 50, at the time. Though the marriage didn’t last – it ended in 1968, the couple remained good friends until Sinatra’s death in 1998 and Mia called him ‘the love of her life’
Elizabeth Taylor found love with singer Eddie Fisher after her husband Mike Todd died in a plane crash . The union was controversial as not only was Fisher her late husband’s best friend, he was also the husband of Taylor’s friend Debbie Reynolds. The couple married in a Las Vegas synagogue in 1959 but ended five years later when Taylor met Richard Burton
Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck lit up the screen in the 1941 romantic comedy You Belong To Me, their third and last film together following The Mad Miss Manton and Lady Eve. Fonda’s legacy continued with his children Jane and Peter Fonda, and his granddaughter Bridget Fonda
Stanwyck, who died in 1990 aged 82, starred alongside Robert Ryan in 1952 Fritz Lang film noir Clash By Night, in which the two become reluctant lovers after she returns to California following the death of her husband
Kim Novak took the title role in the 1957 movie Jeanne Eagles about the downfall of the real-life actress of the same name. Jeff Chandler played carnival owner Sal Satori who gives her a job as a dancer. Their chemistry must have been hot because Novak’s dress caught fire during filming and Chandler extinguished it
British actress Merle Oberon and Hungarian-American actor Cornel Wilde starred in the 1945 classic A Song To Remember about the affair between Polish composer Frederic Chopin and French novelist George Sand
Splendor in the Grass starred newcomer Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood as two high school sweethearts. At the time of filming in 1961, Wood was ending her first marriage to Robert Wagner – they would marry again in 1972 – and started dating her handsome co-star
Victor Mature and Jean Simmons found love in Androcles and the Lion, the 1952 movie about a Christian slave in the Roman Empire who removes a thorn from a lion’s paw. Mature was a Roman captain and Simmons played a high-born Christian convert
John Wayne and Ella Raines are lovers in the 1944 western Tall in the Saddle. The two adored each other, but solely as friends. ‘This is one of those photos that stand out with Wayne holding on to his leading lady drops her gun as they embrace,’ said Moeller
Real-life lovers Jean Harlow and William Powell brought their romance on-screen in the 1935 musical Reckless. Despite their 19 year age difference, the couple’s relationship flourished up until the sex kitten’s premature death from kidney disease at only 26
Gregory Peck played F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1959’s Beloved Infidel. The movie explored the alcoholic author’s affair with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, played by Deborah Kerr
For more information about Globe Entertainment and Media, and its extensive photo collection available for purchase, visit Globephotos.com.
