The marriage ceremony album sits on my desk, held together by tape and previous college binding. It’s extra than a family heirloom, though. It’s a time pill that lets Hollywood’s Golden Age spring to existence.
The date was as soon as June 14, 1959. My mother, rising fundamental person Barbara Shuffle, married my father, Warren Cowan, founding father of Rogers & Cowan, peaceable Hollywood’s premier PR company. Their hosts? Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, who’d played matchmaker to the couple and opened their Beverly Hills house for the ceremony.
The guest list reads adore a marquee: Frank Sinatra purchasing and selling quips with Milton Berle; Dean Martin juggling a cigarette and dinner plate on the buffet; Ronald Reagan discussing the menu with Mom.
Barbara Shuffle and Warren Cowan posed for a picture with their moms on their marriage ceremony day in 1959 at Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis’ estate in Beverly Hills. (Claudia Cowan)(Claudia Cowan)
There’s Jack Lemmon signing the marriage license as a ogle. Shirley MacLaine doubled over in laughter. Doris Day, Edward G. Robinson, Louis Jourdan, Rock Hudson, Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy, Jack Benny, Gene Kelly, Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood — all rubbing elbows with the newlyweds.
These weren’t exact celebrities. They were visitors in their high, most with their largest roles peaceable forward. Young, horny and unstoppable, they filled the pages with an vitality that also radiates this day. These snapshots freeze a 2d when Hollywood’s brightest stars aligned to celebrate devour.
Many Hollywood legends were in attendance at Barbara Shuffle and Warren Cowan’s marriage ceremony.(Claudia Cowan)
The album came to me after mom’s death this past Easter at 97. Dad left us in 2008. But leafing by these yellowing pages, I am struck by the bright lives captured inside. Sooner than I used to be as soon as even a chance, my fogeys were surrounded by ingenious, proficient visitors alive to to be a part of their special day.
I’m sharing these never-earlier than-considered photos because easiest by remembering these we’ve lost, loved and admired, comprise they follow us in our hearts.
Claudia Cowan having a gaze at her fogeys’ marriage ceremony album.(Claudia Cowan)
In these fading images, they’re all without end younger, without end perfect, without end alive.
Claudia Cowan has served as FOX Data Channel’s San Francisco-essentially based fully fully senior correspondent for extra than twenty years. She joined the community as a San Francisco correspondent in 1998.
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