Hard to believe but August 2010 is here (already!), which means many things: be aware that sidewalks can fry bare feet, it's the last chance for those summer vacations and, maybe best of all, it's time for the eighth annual TCM Summer Under the Stars marathon. Each and every day we give a 24-hour salute to one of the famous faces from Hollywood's past and/or present. It all began for us on August 1, 2003, when we saluted James Stewart with a full day of his films, ending with a deep bow thirty-one days later to William Holden. People immediately let us know they loved the concept, and it's been a yearly ritual for us since.

This year our list of notables will include-besides the Eastwoods, Bergmans, Flynns and Newmans- 15 celebrities we're toasting for the first time during one of these August shindigs, among them, alphabetically speaking: Ethel Barrymore, Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, John Gilbert, Kathryn Grayson, Sir John Mills, Margaret O'Brien, Walter Pidgeon, Lee Remick, Robert Ryan, Ann Sheridan, Robert Stack, Woody Strode, Gene Tierney and Thelma Todd.

Thelma who?, you might be asking. Granted, she's not as famous today as the various Bobs on this year's list (Hope, Ryan and Stack) or Katharine/Kathryns (Hepburn and Grayson) but Thelma Todd was a captivating blonde comedienne whose star shown exceptionally bright in the 1920s and early '30s, until she was found dead under mysterious circumstances in 1935 in a case that has never been conclusively solved. Thelma Todd's demise far overshadowed what she did in life, so we thought it appropriate that her delightful skills as an actress, and her considerable appeal on screen, receive some rightful attention.

Speaking of Ms. Hepburn, this year she becomes the star we've honored most often during these yearly S.U.T.S. smorgasbords: this is the sixth time in the eight years we've been doing these August salutes that Kate has been on the list. I suspect she'd love being the official Queen at the head of the class. (Hepburn's father once famously said of her, "Kate never wants to participate in anything unless she's the bride or the corpse.") The runners-up to Hepburn are three of her former co-stars: Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, none of them with their own slot this year, although you'll be seeing each of them in our salutes to others.

This month we're also proud to have over thirty TCM premieres in the lineup, including six with our cover star Gene Tierney: Sundown (1941), China Girl (1942), That Wonderful Urge (1948), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), Close to My Heart (1951) and Leave Her to Heaven, which brought her a 1945 Best Actress Academy Award® nomination. Other TCM premieres this month include two lively Bob Hope comedies (1941's Nothing But the Truth and 1947's Where There's Life), such treats as Richard Rush's The Stunt Man (1980) with Peter O'Toole and Joseph Losey's The Go-Between (1971) with Julie Christie, all the way to a pair of movies about Bomba, the Jungle Boy, and the much discussed 1987 oddity, Ishtar.

To borrow a title from a film we're showing on August 3, we hope this month will allow you to have a fun, lively, entertaining and Great Escape at the movies.

by Robert Osborne