Classical Hollywood cinema in the context of "L. Frank Baum"

The film industry of the United States, primarily associated with major film studios collectively referred to as Hollywood, has significantly influenced the global film industry since the early 20th century.

Classical Hollywood cinema, a filmmaking style developed in the 1910s, continues to shape many American films today. While French filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière are often credited with modern cinema's origins, American filmmaking quickly rose to global dominance. As of 2017, more than 600 English-language films were released annually in the United States, making it the fourth-largest producer of films, trailing only India, Japan, and China. Although the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also produce English-language films, they are not directly part of the Hollywood system. Due to this global reach, Hollywood is frequently regarded as a transnational cinema with some films released in multiple language versions, such as Spanish and French.

Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (/də ˈhævɪlənd/; July 1, 1916 – July 26, 2020) was a British and American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her time. Before her death in 2020 at age 104, she was the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner and was widely considered as being the last surviving major star from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Her younger sister, with whom she had a noted rivalry well documented in the media, was Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine.

De Havilland first came to prominence with Errol Flynn as a screen couple in adventure films such as Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). One of her best-known roles is that of Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939), for which she received the first of her five Oscar nominations, the only one for Best Supporting Actress. De Havilland departed from ingénue roles in the 1940s and later distinguished herself for performances in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), To Each His Own (1946), The Snake Pit (1948), and The Heiress (1949), receiving four Best Actress nominations and winning for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She was also successful in work on stage and television. De Havilland lived in Paris from the 1950s and received honors such as the National Medal of the Arts, the Légion d'honneur, and the appointment to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the age of 101.

Audrey Kathleen Hepburn (née Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress. Recognised as a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend from the Classical Hollywood cinema. She was inducted into the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame and is one of a few entertainers who have won competitive Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards.

Born into an aristocratic family in Ixelles, Brussels, Hepburn spent parts of her childhood in Belgium, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. She attended boarding school in Kent from 1936 to 1939. Hepburn returned to the Netherlands with the Second World War's outbreak. She studied ballet at the Arnhem Conservatory during the war. By 1944, Hepburn was performing ballet to raise money to support the resistance. She studied with Sonia Gaskell in Amsterdam from 1945 to 1948 and then with Marie Rambert in London.

"Vogue" is a song by American singer Madonna from her soundtrack album I'm Breathless: Music from and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy (1990). Written and produced by herself and Shep Pettibone, it was inspired by voguing, a dance popularized in New York City in the late 1980s. The song was released as the lead single from the album on March 20, 1990, by Sire Records and Warner Bros. Records. "Vogue" is a house song with influences of disco, which contains escapist lyrics describing the dance floor as "a place where no boundaries exist". Its middle eight features Madonna name-dropping several actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. "Vogue" was later included on three of Madonna's compilation albums: The Immaculate Collection (1990), Celebration (2009), and Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones (2022).

Upon its release, "Vogue" received positive reviews from music critics, who noted how it was musically different from the rest of the tracks on I'm Breathless; it was retrospectively seen as one of Madonna's career highlights. The song was commercially successful, topping the charts in a number of countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, where it was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "Vogue" became Madonna's biggest selling single at the time of its release, and has sold more than six million copies worldwide to date. It additionally received prizes at the 1991 Juno Awards and at the American Music Awards of 1991.

John Marcellus Huston (/ˈhjuːstən/ HEW-stən; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics. He received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. He also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and the BAFTA Fellowship in 1980.

Son of actor Walter Huston, he studied and worked as a fine art painter in Paris. He then moved to Mexico and began writing, first plays and short stories, and later working in Los Angeles as a Hollywood screenwriter, and was nominated for several Academy Awards writing for films directed by William Dieterle and Howard Hawks, among others. His directorial debut came with The Maltese Falcon (1941), which despite its small budget became a commercial and critical hit; he continued to be a successful, if iconoclastic, Hollywood director for the next 45 years.