Joyce Rubin

I've been an editor at Esquire, Playboy, New York, and Vogue, and I'm a third-generation movie watcher. My grandfather loved Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon--and Wallace Beery; my grandmother loved Jennie Goldstein, "the Yiddish Helen Hayes." My parents might argue about whether or not the blonde chorus girl to whom Dick Powell sings "Young and Healthy" in 42nd Street was Toby Wing. (It was; you were right, Mom. But you were wrong to ask me, "Who are you not to find Fredric March attractive?")

I loved the clothes almost as much as the stars who wore them. Sometimes more.

Rule of thumb: Technicolor is good, but black-and-white is better.