Today is the 94th birthday of Sid Ceasar.  You watch TV.  He was in that covered wagon charting the uncharted, mapping the unmapped in TV land.  He was a pioneer.  The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Sid Caesar
OCCUPATION: Comedian
BIRTH DATE: September 8, 1922
DEATH DATE: February 12, 2014
PLACE OF BIRTH: Yonkers, New York
PLACE OF DEATH: Beverly Hills, California
FRIARS CLUB
BROADCASTING AND CABLE HALL OF FAME
EMMY 1956
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME: 7014 Hollywood Blvd (television)

BEST KNOWN FOR: Sid Caesar was a comedian and the creator of the classic Emmy Award-winning television variety program Your Show of Shows.

Famed comedian Sid Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York, on September 8, 1922, the youngest of three brothers. Both of his parents immigrated to the United States as children, his father from Poland and his mother from Russia. His last name was given to his father by an immigration officer at Ellis Island. The Caesar family ran a restaurant in Yonkers.

Caesar started out as a musician. He reportedly took up the saxophone after a customer left one behind at his parents’ restaurant. During his years at Yonkers High School, Caesar began playing in a band. After graduating in 1939, he found work in the summer resorts in the Catskill Mountains. Caesar was hired as a musician, but he also started doing some comedy as well.

During World War II, Caesar served with the U.S. Coast Guard. His famous sense of humor was discovered by a producer who put him in a Coast Guard revue called Tars and Stars as a comedian. Caesar also appeared in a film version of the production that was released in 1946.

Caesar made his way to Broadway two years later, landing a role in Make Mine Manhattan. This popular revue helped him make the leap into an emerging medium—television—the following year. Caesar also starred on the variety show The Admiral Broadway Revue alongside Imogene Coca and Marge and Gower Champion. While this program didn’t last long, the actor’s next effort would make TV history.

In 1950, Sid Caesar quickly became a Saturday night favorite with Your Show of Shows, a sketch-comedy program also starring Imogene Coca and Carl Reiner, among others. He created a beloved array of characters, from the Professor to cool musician Progress Hornsby.

Additionally, Caesar was a gifted mine and mimic, earning himself comparisons to Charlie Chaplin. His talents were greatly enhanced by a stellar writing staff that included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Larry Gelbart over the show’s four-year run. Behind the scenes, Caesar battled with problems with alcohol.

After Your Show of Shows ended in 1954, Caesar moved on to his next successful TV project: Caesar’s Hour. He won his second Emmy Award for his work on the variety show in 1957. Reuniting with Imogene Coca yet again, he went on to star in another entertainment program, Sid Caesar Invites You. Unfortunately, the project was short-lived.

In the early 1960s, Caesar returned to Broadway with a role in the musical comedy Little Me. He received a great deal of praise for his performance, including a Tony Award nomination. The actor made another attempt to recapture his earlier TV success with The Sid Caesar Show in 1963, but the program failed to catch on with viewers.

In the 1970s and ’80s, Caesar made a number of TV and film appearances. He took on small parts in such popular movies as the disaster drama Airport 1975 and the 1978 musical Grease, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. Caesar also had a memorable turn as a caveman in the Mel Brooks comedy History of the World: Part I (1981).

Long plagued by personal demons, Caesar shared details of his struggles and his recovery in his 1983 autobiography, Where Have I Been?. Two years later, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

In 2003, Caesar reflected on his career in the book Caesar’s Hours: My Life in Comedy, with Love and Laughter, which he co-wrote with Eddy Friedfeld. In 2012, he appeared in the documentary Lunch, a film chronicling a weekly get-together between Caesar and some of Hollywood’s TV veterans, including Monty Hall from the long-running game show Let’s Make a Deal and announcer Gary Owens.

Following a brief illness, Sid Caesar died on February 12, 2014, at the age of 91, in Beverly Hills, California.

TELEVISION
Your Show of Shows
Caesar’s Hour Bob Victor

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
When Comedy Went to School (6-Jun-2013) · Himself
Comic Book: The Movie (27-Jan-2004) · Julius
The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (23-Jan-1998)
Vegas Vacation (14-Feb-1997)
The Great Mom Swap (23-Sep-1995)
Freedom Fighter (11-Jan-1988)
The Emperor’s New Clothes (1987) · Emperor
Stoogemania (Jun-1986)
Alice in Wonderland (9-Dec-1985)
Cannonball Run II (29-Jun-1984)
Over the Brooklyn Bridge (2-Mar-1984)
Grease 2 (11-Jun-1982) · Coach Calhoun
History of the World: Part I (12-Jun-1981)
The Munsters’ Revenge (27-Feb-1981)
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (8-Aug-1980)
Grease (7-Jul-1978) · Coach Calhoun
The Cheap Detective (23-Jun-1978)
Fire Sale (6-Jan-1978)
Curse of the Black Widow (16-Sep-1977)
Silent Movie (16-Jun-1976)
Airport 1975 (18-Oct-1974) · Barney
The Spirit Is Willing (Jul-1967)
A Guide for the Married Man (25-May-1967)
The Busy Body (12-Mar-1967)
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (7-Nov-1963) · Melville Crump
The Guilt of Janet Ames (6-Mar-1947) · Sammy Weaver

Author of books:
Caesar’s Hours: My Life in Comedy, With Love and Laughter (memoir, with Eddy Friedfeld)
Where Have I Been: An Autobiography (memoir, with Bill Davidson)

Source: Sid Caesar – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Sid Caesar – Comedian – Biography.com

Source: Sid Caesar Dead, Iconic Comedian Dies At 91 | Variety

Source: Sid Caesar

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Today is the 92nd birthday of the author Truman Capote.  I had read Breakfast At Tiffany’s years ago, long before I got a job at Tiffany & Co. and thought it was a bit strange that people would mention it as much as they did.  Even the film is pretty clear at what Holly Golightly does for a living, in the book, it is quite plain and simple.  I found it even stranger that Tiffany & Co. would glamorize it as much as they do.  I guess they aren’t paying very close attention either.  His work transcends all and is in the general American consciousness, even if they don’t completely understand why or the details of it.  All that is pretty great.  The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Truman Capote
OCCUPATION: Author
BIRTH DATE: September 30, 1924
DEATH DATE: August 25, 1984
EDUCATION: St. Joseph Military Academy, Greenwich High School, Trinity School, Dwight School
PLACE OF BIRTH: New Orleans, Louisiana
PLACE OF DEATH: Los Angeles, California
REMAINS: Buried, Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA
O. Henry Award 1948 for Shut a Final Door
Edgar Allan Poe Award 1962 for The Innocents (best motion picture)
Edgar Allan Poe Award 1966 for In Cold Blood (best fact crime)

BEST KNOWN FOR: Truman Capote was a trailblazing writer of Southern descent known for the works Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, among others.

Acclaimed writer Truman Capote was born Truman Streckfus Persons on September 30, 1924, in New Orleans, Louisiana. One of the 20th century’s most well-known writers, Capote was as fascinating a character as those who appeared in his stories. His parents were an odd pair—a small-town girl named Lillie Mae and a charming schemer called Arch—and they largely neglected their son, often leaving him in the care of others. Capote spent much of his young life in the care of his mother’s relatives in Monroeville, Alabama.

In Monroeville, Capote befriended a young Harper Lee. The two were opposites—Capote was a sensitive boy who was picked on by other kids for being a wimp, while Lee was a rough and tumble tomboy. Despite their differences, Lee found Capote to be a delight, calling him “a pocket Merlin” for his creative and inventive ways. Little did these playful pals know that they would both become famous writers one day.

While he had fun with his friends, Capote also had to struggle with his nightmarish family life. Seeing little of his mother and his father over the years, he often wrestled with feeling abandoned by them. One of the few times he caught their interest was during their divorce with each of them fighting for custody as a way to hurt the other. Capote finally did get to live with his mother full time in 1932, but this reunion did not turn out as he had hoped. He moved to New York City to live with her and his new stepfather, Joe Capote.

I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.

His once-doting mother was quite different once he started to encounter her on a daily basis. Lillie Mae—now calling herself Nina—could easily be cruel or kind to Truman, and he never knew what to expect from her. She often picked on him for his effeminate ways, and for not being like other boys. His stepfather seemed to be a more stable personality in the home, but Truman was not interested in his help or support at the time. Still, he was officially adopted by his stepfather, and his name was changed to Truman Garcia Capote in 1935.

A mediocre student, Capote did well in the courses that interested him and paid little attention in those that did not. He attended a private boys’ school in Manhattan from 1933 to 1936, where he charmed some of his classmates. An unusual boy, Capote had a gift for telling stories and entertaining people. His mother wanted to make him more masculine, and thought that sending him to a military academy would be the answer. The 1936-1937 school year proved to be a disaster for Capote. The smallest in his class, he was often picked on by the other cadets.

Returning to Manhattan, Capote started to attract attention for his work at school. Some of his teachers noted his promise as a writer. In 1939, the Capotes moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, where Truman enrolled at Greenwich High School. He stood out among his classmates with his ebullient personality. Over time, Capote developed a group of friends who would often go over to his house to smoke, drink, and dance in his room. He and his group would also go out to nearby clubs. Seeking adventure as well as an escape, Capote and his good friend Phoebe Pierce would also go into New York City and scheme their way into some of the most popular nightspots, including the Stork Club and Café Society.

While living in Greenwich, his mother’s drinking began to escalate, which made Capote’s home life even more unstable. Capote did not do well in school and had repeat the 12th grade at the Franklin School after he and his family returned to Manhattan in 1942. Instead of studying, Capote spent his nights at the clubs, making friends with Oona O’Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt.

While still a teen, Capote got his first job working as a copyboy for The New Yorker magazine.During his time with the publication, Capote tried to get his stories published there with no success. He left The New Yorker to write full time, and started the novel Summer Crossing, which he shelved to work on a novella entitled Other Voices, Other Rooms. Capote’s first successes were not his novels, but several short stories. In 1945, editor George Davis selected Capote’s story “Miriam” about a strange little girl for publication in Mademoiselle. In addition to befriending Davis, Capote became close to his assistant Rita Smith, the sister of famous southern author Carson McCullers. She later introduced the two, and Capote and McCullers were friends for a time.

Capote’s story in Mademoiselle attracted the attention of Harper’s Bazaar fiction editor Mary Louise Aswell. The publication ran another dark and eerie story by Capote, “A Tree of Light” in its October 1945. These stories as well as “My Side of the Matter” and “Jug of Silver” helped launch Capote’s career and gave him entrée into the New York literary world.

While struggling to work on his first novel, Capote received some assistance from Carson McCullers. She helped him get accepted at Yaddo, a famous artists’ colony in New York State. Capote spent part of the summer of 1946 there, where he did some work on his novel and completed the short story, “The Headless Hawk,” which was published by Mademoiselle that fall. Capote also fell in love with Newton Arvin, a college professor and literary scholar. The bookish academic and the effervescent charmer made quite an interesting pair. Arvin, as with most of the others at Yaddo, was completely taken by Capote’s wit, manner, and appearance. That same year, Capote won the prestigious O. Henry Award for his short story “Miriam.”

His first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, was published in 1948 to mixed reviews. In the work, a young boy is sent to live with his father after the death of his mother. His father’s home is a decrepit old plantation. For a time the boy does not get to see his father and instead must deal with his stepmother, her cousin, and some other unusual characters that inhabit this desolate place. While some criticized elements of the story, such as its homosexual theme, many reviewers noted Capote’s talents as a writer. The book sold well, especially for a first-time author.

In addition to receiving accolades and publicity, Capote found love in 1948. He met author Jack Dunphy at a party in 1948, and the two began what was to be a 35-year relationship. During the early years of their relationship, Capote and Dunphy traveled extensively. They spent time in Europe and other places where they both worked on their own projects.

Capote followed the success of Other Voices with a collection of short stories, A Tree of Light, published in 1949. Not one to stay out of the public eye for long, his travel essays were put out in book form in 1950 as Local Color. His much-anticipated second novel, The Grass Harp, was released to in the fall of 1951. The fanciful tale explored an unlikely group of characters who take refuge from their troubles in a large tree. At the request of Broadway producer Saint Subber, Capote adapted his novel for the stage. The sets and costumes were designed by Capote’s close friend, Cecil Beaton. The comedy opened in March 1952, closing after 36 performances.

In 1953, Capote landed some film work. He wrote some of Stazione Termini (later released as Indiscretion of an American Wife in the United States), which starred Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift. During the filming in Italy, Capote and Clift developed a friendship. After that project wrapped, Capote was soon working on the script for the John Huston-directed Beat the Devil, starring Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida, during its production. His best screenplay, however, was done years later when he adapted the Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw into The Innocents (1961).

Undeterred by his past failure, Capote adapted his story about a Haitian bordello, “House of Flowers,” for the stage at Subber’s urging. The musical debuted on Broadway in 1954 with Pearl Bailey as its star and had Alvin Ailey and Diahann Carroll in the cast as well. Despite the best efforts of Capote and the show’s fine performers, the musical failed to attract enough critical and commercial attention. It closed after 165 performances. That same year, Capote suffered a great personal loss when his mother died.

Always fascinated by the rich and social elite, Capote found himself a popular figure in such circles. He counted Gloria Guinness, Babe and Bill Paley (the founder of CBS Television), Jackie Kennedy and her sister Lee Radziwell, C. Z. Guest, and many others among his friends. Once an outsider, Capote was invited for cruises on their yachts and for stays on their estates. He loved gossip—both hearing and sharing it. In the late 1950s, Capote began discussing a novel based on this jet-set world, calling it Answered Prayers.

In 1958, Capote scored another success with Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He explored the life of a New York City party girl, Holly Golightly—who was a woman who depended on men to get by. With his usual style and panache, Capote had created a fascinating character within a well-crafted story. Three years later, the film version was released, starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly. Capote had wanted Marilyn Monroe in the lead role, and was disappointed with this adaptation.

Capote’s next big project started out as an article for The New Yorker. He set out with friend Harper Lee to write about the impact of the murder of four members of the Clutter family on their small Kansas farming community. The two traveled to Kansas to interview townspeople, friends and family of the deceased, and the investigators working to solve the crime. Truman, with his flamboyant personality and style, had a hard time initially getting himself into his subjects’ good graces. Without using tape recorders, the two would write up their notes and observations at the end of each day and compare their findings.

During their time in Kansas, the Clutters’ suspected killers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, were caught in Las Vegas and brought back to Kansas. Lee and Capote got a chance to interview the suspects not long after their return in January 1960. Soon after, Lee and Capote went back to New York. Capote started working on his article, which would evolve into the non-fiction masterpiece, In Cold Blood. He also corresponded with the accused killers, trying them to reveal more about themselves and the crime. In March 1960, Capote and Lee returned to Kansas for the murder trial.

While the two convicted and sentenced to death, their execution was staved off by a series of appeals. Hickock and Smith hoped that Capote would help them escape the hangman’s noose and were upset to hear that the book’s title was In Cold Blood, which indicated that the murders had been premeditated.

Writing this non-fiction masterwork took a lot out of Capote. For years, he labored on it and still had to wait for the story to find its ending in the legal system. Hickock and Smith were finally executed on April 14, 1965, at the Kansas State Penitentiary. At their request, Capote traveled to Kansas to witness their deaths. He refused to see them the day before, but he visited with both Hickock and Smith shortly before their hangings.In Cold Blood became a huge hit, both critically and commercially. Capote used a number of techniques usually found in fiction to bring this true story to life for his readers. It was first serialized in The New Yorker in four issues with readers anxiously awaiting each gripping installment. When it was published as a book, In Cold Blood was an instant best-seller.

While In Cold Blood brought him acclaim and wealth, Capote was never the same after the project. Digging into such dark territory had taken a toll on him psychologically and physically. Known to drink, Capote began drinking more and started taking tranquilizers to soothe his frayed nerves. His substance abuse problems escalated over the coming years.

Despite his problems, Capote did, however, manage to pull off one of the biggest social events of the 20th century. Attracting his society friends, literary notables, and stars, his Black and White Ball garnered a huge amount of publicity. The event was held in the Grand Ballroom at the Plaza hotel on November 28, 1966 with publisher Katharine Graham as the guest of honor. In choosing a dress code, Capote decided that the men should dress in black tie attire while women could wear either a black or white dress. Everyone had to wear a mask. One of the evening’s more memorable moments was when actress Lauren Bacall danced with director and choreographer Jerome Robbins.

Those society friends that flocked to the ball were in for a nasty shock several years later. Considered one of the notorious instances of biting the hand that feeds, Capote had a chapter from Answered Prayers published in Esquire magazine in 1976. That chapter, “La Cote Basque, 1965,” aired a lot of his society friends’ secrets as thinly veiled fiction. Many of his friends, hurt by his betrayal, turned their back on him. He claimed to be surprised by their reactions and was hurt by their rejection. By the late 1970s, Capote had moved on to the party scene at the famous club Studio 54 where he hung out with the likes of Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, and Liza Minnelli.

By this time, Capote’s relationship with Jack Dunphy was becoming strained. Dunphy wanted Capote to stop drinking and taking drugs, which—despite numerous trips to rehabilitation centers over the years—Capote seemed unable to do. While no longer physically intimate, the two remained close, spending time together at their neighboring homes in Sagaponack, Long Island. Capote also had other relationships with younger men, which did little to improve his emotional and psychological state.

Published in 1980, Capote’s last major work, Music for Chameleons, was a collection of non-fiction and fictional pieces, including the novella Handcarved Coffins. The collection did well, but Capote was clearly in decline, battling his addictions and physical health problems.

In the final year of his life, Capote had two bad falls, another failed stint in rehab, and a stay in a Long Island hospital for an overdose. Traveling to California, Capote went to stay with old friend Joanne Carson, the ex-wife of Johnny Carson. He died at her Los Angeles home on August 25, 1984.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Murder by Death (23-Jun-1976) · Lionel Twain
Cocksucker Blues (1972) · Himself
Trilogy (6-Nov-1969) [VOICE]

Author of books:
Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948, novel)
A Tree of Night and Other Stories (1949, short stories)
Local Color (1950, collection)
The Grass Harp (1951, novel)
The Muses Are Heard (1956, collection)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958, collection)
Selected Writings (1963, collection)
In Cold Blood (1965, novel)
A Christmas Memory (1966, fiction)
The Thanksgiving Visitor (1968, fiction)
The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Places (1973, collection)
Music for Chameleons: New Writing (1980, collection)

Source: Truman Capote – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Truman Capote – Author – Biography.com

Source: Thank Truman Capote For Shows Like ‘Making A Murderer’

Source: Truman Capote

come find me, i’m @

Today is the 91st birthday of the legendary screen heartthrob Rock Hudson.  I once read a recount of how he got his gravely voice.  He was told by movie executives to go up into the mountains and scream until he lost his voice, this damaged his vocal cords in a way that left him with the very low voice he had for his entire career.  I am not sure if it is true, but it is crazy to think that someone would tell a person to do that.  With his legendary good looks and impressive resume of film credits behind him, he publicly announced he had AIDS to the world and took it from being a fringe disease that no one personally knew who had it to being on the cover of People Magazine.  The bravery at the end of his life is an example of true strength of character.  He propelled the image of AIDS mainstream, we all now knew someone with it, it became immediately personal for all of us.  The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Rock Hudson
OCCUPATION: Film Actor
BIRTH DATE: November 17, 1925
DEATH DATE: October 02, 1985
PLACE OF BIRTH: Winnetka, Illinois
PLACE OF DEATH: Beverly Hills, California
ORIGINALLY: Roy Harold Scherer, Jr.
REMAINS: Cremated (ashes scattered at sea)
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME: 6104 Hollywood Blvd.

BEST KNOWN FOR: Rock Hudson was a leading man of the Hollywood screen in the 1950s and 1960s. His death from AIDS in 1985 greatly increased awareness of the disease.

Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. on November 17, 1925, in Winnetka, Illinois, and would go on to become an immensely popular actor, recognized widely for his good looks. During the Great Depression, His father, Roy Harold Scherer, lost his job as an auto mechanic and left the family. When Hudson was age 8, his mother, Katherine Wood, remarried and the actor took the surname of his stepfather, Wallace Fitzgerald. Growing up, Hudson did not excel academically, but had a certain charisma that made him popular among classmates.

In 1944, Rock Hudson joined the U.S. Navy and served in the Philippines. Shortly after his discharge in 1946, he decided to move to Hollywood, California, to pursue an acting career. While he found work as a truck driver, most of his free time was spent hanging around the studios and handing out headshots to studio executives. It’s not surprising that people soon began to take notice of the aspiring actor, with his good looks and charm.

In 1947, talent scout Henry Wilson took an interest in Hudson, taking the soon-to-be actor on as his protégé and crafting the moniker by which he’s now best known: “Rock” for the rock of Gibraltar, and “Hudson” for the Hudson River.

Hudson had no professional training as an actor, which proved a difficult feat to overcome. After a few setbacks, Hudson broke into the business, acquiring a contract with Warner Brothers and landing his first role in the feature film Fire Squadron. In 1948, Universal Pictures bought out Hudson’s contract with Warner Brothers and provided him with acting lessons.

Hudson went on to play bit roles in a number of films until he was hired as a lead in Douglas Sirk’s Magnificent Obsession. This film established Hudson as a star and his career, subsequently, began to skyrocket. He starred in several dramatic movies, including the critically acclaimed Giant (1956), which also starred heavy-hitters Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. Hudson received an Academy Award nomination for his performance in the film.

A pivotal period for Hudson’s career came in 1959. He was cast opposite Doris Day in Pillow Talk, the first of a film series in which he portrayed the romantic lead. The dashing actor quickly became a heartthrob; women lusted after him and men wanted to be him. He paired with Day in a number of later films, including Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964). In 1966, the actor took a chance and accepted a role that was well out of his now-normal spectrum: He starred in John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds, a sci-fi thriller that wasn’t well-received by audiences.

In 1971, Rock Hudson joined the cast of the popular television investigative series Macmillin and Wife. In the ’80s, he appeared on the show Dynasty.

Hudson married Phyllis Gates, an aspiring actress, in 1955. Unbeknownst to Phyllis, the marriage was arranged by her employer, Hudson’s agent, Henry Wilson, to keep up appearances. A gay man, Hudson was not outward about his homosexuality due to the social stigma surrounding the topic at the time; he feared that publicly discussing it would be negative for his career. The marriage lasted for only three years; while Hudson was in Italy filming 1957’s A Farewell to Arms, the couple divorced.

Throughout his career, Rock Hudson’s public image remained untarnished, but his private life was somewhat torturous. He had a number of homosexual lovers, but continued to keep his sexuality a secret.

In June 1984, Hudson went to visit a doctor about an irritation on his neck. The irritation turned out to be a lesion and a sign of Kaposi sarcoma, a cancerous tumor that affects AIDS patients. Rock Hudson was diagnosed with AIDS on June 5, 1984. A year later, on Jul 25, 1985, he publicly announced that he was suffering from the disease—becoming one of the first celebrities to do so, as well as one of the first to disclose his homosexuality. His openness was a catalyst for public awareness of the worldwide epidemic.

Hudson spent the remainder of his life surrounded by friends and family. He died from AIDS-related complications on October 2, 1985, at the age of 59, in Beverly Hills, California. He was the first major celebrity to die from an AIDS-related illness. Today, Rock Hudson is remembered not only for his legacy as a talented screen actor, but for his courageous choice to go public about his AIDS diagnosis.

TELEVISION
Dynasty Daniel Reece (1984-85)
The Devlin Connection Brian Devlin (1982)
McMillan and Wife Stewart McMillan (1971-76)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Ambassador (23-May-1984)
World War III (31-Jan-1982)
The Mirror Crack’d (19-Dec-1980)
The Martian Chronicles (27-Jan-1980)
Avalanche (30-Aug-1978)
Embryo (21-May-1976)
Showdown (8-Jun-1973) · Chuck
Pretty Maids All in a Row (28-Apr-1971)
Hornets’ Nest (9-Sep-1970)
Darling Lili (24-Jun-1970)
The Undefeated (7-Nov-1969) · Col. James Langdon
A Fine Pair (10-May-1969)
Ice Station Zebra (23-Oct-1968) · Cmdr. James Ferraday
Tobruk (7-Feb-1967) · Maj. Craig
Seconds (5-Oct-1966)
Blindfold (23-Dec-1965)
A Very Special Favor (2-Aug-1965)
Strange Bedfellows (10-Feb-1965) · Carter
Send Me No Flowers (14-Oct-1964) · George
Man’s Favorite Sport (29-Jan-1964) · Roger Willoughby
A Gathering of Eagles (21-Jun-1963)
The Spiral Road (3-Aug-1962)
Lover Come Back (20-Dec-1961) · Jerry Webster
Come September (9-Aug-1961) · Robert Talbot
The Last Sunset (7-Jun-1961) · Dana Stribling
Pillow Talk (6-Oct-1959) · Brad Allen
This Earth is Mine (26-Jun-1959)
Twilight for the Gods (6-Aug-1958)
The Tarnished Angels (6-Jan-1958)
A Farewell to Arms (14-Dec-1957) · Lt. Frederick Henry
Something of Value (10-May-1957) · Peter McKenzie
Battle Hymn (14-Feb-1957) · Dean Hess
Written on the Wind (Dec-1956) · Mitch Wayne
Giant (10-Oct-1956) · Bick Benedict
Never Say Goodbye (10-Mar-1956)
All That Heaven Allows (7-Jan-1956) · Ron Kirby
Captain Lightfoot (18-Feb-1955)
One Desire (1955)
Bengal Brigade (6-Nov-1954)
Magnificent Obsession (4-Aug-1954)
Taza, Son of Cochise (18-Feb-1954) · Taza
Back to God’s Country (Nov-1953)
Gun Fury (30-Oct-1953) · Ben Warren
The Golden Blade (12-Aug-1953) · Harun
Sea Devils (Apr-1953)
Seminole (Mar-1953) · Lance Caldwell
The Lawless Breed (3-Jan-1953) · John Wesley Hardin
Horizons West (11-Oct-1952)
Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (4-Jul-1952)
Scarlet Angel (20-Jun-1952)
Here Come the Nelsons (23-Feb-1952) · Charlie Jones
Bend of the River (23-Jan-1952)
Iron Man (18-Aug-1951) · Speed O’Keefe
Bright Victory (16-Jul-1951) · Dudek
Air Cadet (14-Mar-1951)
Tomahawk (5-Feb-1951) · Burt Hanna
Shakedown (1-Sep-1950)
The Desert Hawk (5-Aug-1950)
Winchester ’73 (12-Jul-1950) · Young Bull
I Was a Shoplifter (27-Apr-1950)
Undertow (1-Dec-1949) · Detective

Author of books:
Rock Hudson: His Story (1986, biography)

Source: Rock Hudson – Wikipedia

Source: Rock Hudson – Film Actor – Biography.com

Source: Rock Hudson

Source: Rock Hudson – Rotten Tomatoes

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Today is the 108th birthday of Imogene Coca.  There are a lot of people whose lives seem less remembered than others and less recognition is paid to their contributions than I feel is due to them.  I am sure that is why I started the “Style Icon” tag in the first place:  to remember and recognize the contributions that others made to society. Imogene Coca is one of the initial people I had in mind.  She is just perfection.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Emogeane Coca
BIRTHDATE: November 18, 1908
BIRTHPLACE: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S
DATE OF DEATH: June 2, 2001
LOCATION OF DEATH: Westport, Connecticut, U.S.
REMAINS: Cremated (ashes scattered)
BROADCASTING AND CABLE HALL OF FAME
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6256 Hollywood Blvd (television)

BEST KNOWN FOR: American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows.

Starting out in vaudeville as a child acrobat, she studied ballet and wished to have a serious career in music and dance, graduating to decades of stage musical revues, cabaret and summer stock. Finally in her 40s she began a celebrated career as a comedienne in television, starring in six series and guesting on successful television programs from the 1940s to the 1990s.

She was nominated for five Emmy awards for Your Show of Shows, winning Best Actress in 1951 and singled out for a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting in 1953. Coca was also nominated for a Tony Award in 1978 for On the Twentieth Century and received a sixth Emmy nomination at the age of 80 for an episode of Moonlighting.

She possessed a rubbery face capable of the broadest expressions—Life magazine compared her to Beatrice Lillie and Charlie Chaplin, and described her characterizations as taking “people or situations suspended in their own precarious balance between dignity and absurdity, and push(ing) them over the cliff with one single, pointed gesture”—the magazine noted a “particularly high-brow critic” as observing, “The trouble with most comedians who try to do satire is that they are essentially brash, noisy and indelicate people who have to use a sledge hammer to smash a butterfly. Miss Coca, on the other hand, is the timid woman who, when aroused, can beat a tiger to death with a feather.”

In addition to vaudeville, cabaret, theater and television, she appeared in film, voiced children’s cartoons and was even featured in an MTV video by a New Wave band, working well into her 80s. Twice a widow, Coca died in 2001.

In 1995 she was honored with the second annual Women in Film Lucy Award, honoring women’s achievement in television and named after Lucille Ball.

TELEVISION
Your Show of Shows Regular (1950-54)
It’s About Time Shadd (1966-67)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Buy & Cell (1987)
Alice in Wonderland (9-Dec-1985)
Nothing Lasts Forever (Sep-1984)
National Lampoon’s Vacation (29-Jul-1983) · Aunt Edna
The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies (6-Oct-1981)
Rabbit Test (9-Apr-1978)
Under the Yum Yum Tree (23-Oct-1963) · Dorkus

Source: Imogene Coca – Wikipedia

Source: Imogene Coca, 92, Is Dead; a Partner in One of TV’s Most Successful Comedy Teams – The New York Times

Source: Imogene Coca | The Brady Bunch Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia

Source: Imogene Coca

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Today is Agnes Moorehead‘s 116th birthday.  Everyone loves her amazing over-the-top scenery-chewing performance as Endora on Bewitched. She was fierce before fierce was fierce. You should also watch her first film Citizen Kane and pay attention to her character:  simply perfection. Then, she stole focus in every scene in What’s the Matter With Helen? and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, she made you want to watch her every move, to not miss a second of her. She was in Pollyanna and Rain Tree County and Dark Passage (have you seen Dark Passage?  Amazing.)  She carved out a bigger-that-life life that no one has replicated.  The world is a better place because Agnes was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Agnes Moorehead
BIRTH DATE: December 5, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH: Clinton, Massachusetts, U.S.
DATE OF DEATH: April 30, 1974
PLACE OF DEATH: Rochester, Minnesota, U.S.
REMAINS: Dayton Memorial Park in Dayton, Ohio
EMMY 1967 for The Wild Wild West “Night of the Vicious Valentine”
GOLDEN GLOBE 1945 for Mrs. Parkington
GOLDEN GLOBE 1965 for Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 1719 Vine St. (motion pictures)
ST. LOUIS WALK OF FAME

BEST KNOWN FOR: Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress whose career of six decades included work in radio, stage, film, and television. She is chiefly known for her role as Endora on the television series Bewitched.

Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences for her role as the witch Endora in the series Bewitched.

While rarely playing leads in films, Moorehead’s skill at character development and range earned her one Emmy Award and two Golden Globe awards in addition to four Academy Award and six Emmy Award nominations. Moorehead’s transition to television won acclaim for drama and comedy. She could play many different types, but often portrayed haughty, arrogant characters.

Moorehead died of uterine cancer on April 30, 1974 in Rochester, Minnesota. Her mother, Mary M. Moorehead (August 25, 1883 – June 8, 1990) survived her by 16 years, dying at the age of 106 in 1990.

Moorehead appeared in the movie The Conqueror (1956), which was shot near St. George, Utah — downwind from the Yucca Flat, Nevada nuclear test site. She was one of over 90 (of 220) cast and crew members–including costars Susan Hayward, John Wayne, and Pedro Armendariz, as well as director-producer Dick Powell — who, over their lifetimes, all developed cancer; at least 46 from cast and crew have since died from cancer, including all of those named above. No bombs were tested during the actual filming of The Conqueror, but 11 explosions occurred the year before. Two of them were particularly “dirty,” depositing long-lasting radiation over the area. The 51.5-kiloton shot code-named “Simon” was fired on April 25, 1953, and the 32.4-kiloton blast “Harry” went off May 19. (In contrast, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 13 kilotons.) “Fallout was very abundant more than a year after Harry,” says Dr. Pendleton, a former AEC researcher. “Some of the isotopes, such as strontium 90 and cesium 137, would not have diminished much.” Pendleton points out that radioactivity can concentrate in “hot spots” such as the rolling dunes of Snow Canyon, a natural reservoir for windblown material. It was the place where much of The Conqueror was filmed. Pendleton also notes that radioactive substances enter the food chain. By eating local meat and produce, the Conqueror cast and crew were increasing their risk. Says Dr. Robert C. Pendleton, director of radiological health at the University of Utah stated, “With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you’d expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up even in a court of law.”

Agnes was one of the first members of the company to make a connection between the film and the fallout. Her close friend Sandra Gould, who was featured with her on Bewitched, recalls that long before Moorehead developed the uterine cancer that killed her in 1974, she recounted rumors of “some radioactive germs” on location in Utah, observing:

“Everybody in that picture has gotten cancer and died.” As she was dying, she reportedly said: “I should never have taken that part.”

TELEVISION
Bewitched Endora (1964-72)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Frankenstein: The True Story (30-Nov-1973)
Charlotte’s Web (22-Feb-1973) [VOICE]
Dear Dead Delilah (1972)
What’s the Matter with Helen? (30-Jun-1971) · Sister Alma
The Ballad of Andy Crocker (18-Nov-1969)
The Singing Nun (17-Mar-1966) · Sister Cluny
Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (15-Dec-1964) · Velma
Who’s Minding the Store? (28-Nov-1963) · Mrs. Phoebe Tuttle
How the West Was Won (1-Nov-1962) · Rebecca Prescott
Jessica (19-Apr-1962) · Maria Lombardo
Bachelor in Paradise (1-Nov-1961) · Judge Peterson
Twenty Plus Two (13-Aug-1961)
Pollyanna (19-May-1960)
The Bat (9-Aug-1959) · Cornelia Van Gorder
Night of the Quarter Moon (4-Mar-1959)
Tempest (1-Dec-1958)
The Story of Mankind (8-Nov-1957) · Queen Elizabeth I
Raintree County (4-Oct-1957) · Ellen Shawnessy
Jeanne Eagels (2-Aug-1957)
The True Story of Jesse James (Feb-1957) · Mrs. Samuel
The Opposite Sex (26-Oct-1956) · Countess
Pardners (25-Jul-1956)
The Revolt of Mamie Stover (11-May-1956)
The Swan (26-Apr-1956) · Queen Maria Dominika
Meet Me in Las Vegas (9-Mar-1956) · Miss Hattie
The Conqueror (21-Feb-1956)
All That Heaven Allows (7-Jan-1956) · Sara Warren
The Left Hand of God (21-Sep-1955) · Beryl Sigman
Untamed (1-Mar-1955)
Magnificent Obsession (4-Aug-1954)
Those Redheads from Seattle (16-Oct-1953) · Mrs. Edmonds
Main Street to Broadway (13-Oct-1953)
Scandal at Scourie (17-May-1953) · Sister Josephine
The Story of Three Loves (5-Mar-1953)
The Blue Veil (26-Oct-1951)
Show Boat (13-Jul-1951) · Parthy Hawks
Adventures of Captain Fabian (21-Mar-1951)
Fourteen Hours (6-Mar-1951)
Caged (19-May-1950) · Ruth Benton
Captain Blackjack (1950)
Without Honor (26-Oct-1949)
The Great Sinner (29-Jun-1949) · Emma Getzel
The Stratton Story (12-May-1949)
Johnny Belinda (14-Sep-1948) · Aggie McDonald
Station West (1-Sep-1948)
The Woman in White (7-May-1948) · Countess Fosco
Summer Holiday (23-Feb-1948) · Cousin Lily
The Lost Moment (21-Nov-1947) · Juliana Borderau
Dark Passage (5-Sep-1947) · Madge Rapf
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (6-Sep-1945) · Bruna Jacobson
Her Highness and the Bellboy (11-Jul-1945) · Countess Zoe
Keep Your Powder Dry (8-Mar-1945) · Lt. Col. Spottiswoode
Tomorrow, the World! (29-Dec-1944) · Jessie Frame
Mrs. Parkington (12-Oct-1944) · Aspasia Conti
The Seventh Cross (24-Jul-1944) · Mme. Marelli
Since You Went Away (20-Jul-1944) · Emily Hawkins
Dragon Seed (18-Jul-1944) · Third Cousin’s Wife
Jane Eyre (7-Apr-1944) · Mrs. Reed
Government Girl (5-Nov-1943) · Adele
The Youngest Profession (26-Feb-1943) · Miss Featherstone
The Big Street (13-Aug-1942) · Violette Shumberg
Journey Into Fear (7-Aug-1942) · Mrs. Mathews
The Magnificent Ambersons (10-Jul-1942) · Fanny
Citizen Kane (1-May-1941) · Mary Kane

Source: Agnes Moorehead

Source: Agnes Moorehead – Wikipedia

Source: From the Archives: Agnes Moorehead, Character Actress of Movies and TV, Dies – LA Times

Source: Bewitched Beography on Agnes Moorehead – Bewitched @ Harpies Bizarre

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Today is the 82nd birthday of the actress Ellen Burstyn.

NAME:  Ellen Burstyn
OCCUPATION:  Actress
BIRTH DATE:  December 7, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH:  Detroit, Michigan
ORIGINALLY:  Edna Rae Gillooly
OSCAR for Best Actress 1975 for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
GOLDEN GLOBE 1979 for Same Time, Next Year
TONY 1975 for Same Time, Next Year
ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION President (1982-85)

BEST KNOWN FOR: Actress Ellen Burstyn played the mother in The Exorcist and earned an Oscar for her role in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

Actress. Born Edna Rae Gillooly, on December 7, 1932, in Detroit, Michigan. Burstyn left home at the age of 18 to work as a model. In the late 1950s, she landed her first regular acting gig, as a dancer on television’s The Jackie Gleason Show, billed as Erica Dean. She made her Broadway debut in 1957 in Fair Game, using the stage name Ellen McRae. She would keep that name for the next 10 years, while working steadily on television (the daytime drama The Doctors in 1964 and the western-themed series The Iron Horse from 1966-68) and in minor film roles (1964’s Goodbye, Charlie).

After changing her name yet again, this time to Ellen Burstyn, she landed what would become her breakthrough role, that of Lois Farrow in The Last Picture Show (1971), costarring Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd. Her performance earned Burstyn her first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. She earned a second Oscar nod this time for Best Actress, two years later, for her role as the middle-aged actress whose daughter (Linda Blair) is possessed by demonic forces in The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin.

In 1974, Burstyn produced and starred in Martin Scorsese’s emotional drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, winning an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of a single mother struggling to support herself and her young son. In addition to her triumphs on screen, Burstyn took home a Tony Award in 1975 for her performance opposite Charles Grodin in Same Time, Next Year. She later reprised her role in the 1978 film version, co-starring Alan Alda, and garnered another Oscar nomination in the lead actress category. Her fourth Best Actress nod came just two years later, for Resurrection (1980).

A respected member of both the film and theater community, Burstyn served as the first female president of the Actor’s Equity Association from 1982 to 1985. Also in 1982, she succeeded Lee Strasberg as the co-artistic director (with Al Pacino) of the Actors Studio. Burstyn would serve in the Actors Studio post for the next six years (Pacino stepped down in 1984). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, she also built up a considerable resume of acclaimed television features and series, beginning in 1981 with her Emmy-nominated performance in the fact-based miniseries The People vs. Jean Harris. In addition to such dramatic TV movies as Surviving (1985), Into Thin Air (1985), and the Emmy-nominated Pack of Lies (1987), Burstyn tried her hand at comedy with her own series, The Ellen Burstyn Show (1986-87).

Burstyn went on to play a number of small, if memorable, performances in a variety of more films, including How to Make an American Quilt (1995), starring Winona Ryder, and The Spitfire Grill (1996). In 1998, she was featured as part of the impressive ensemble cast of Playing By Heart, also featuring Sean Connery, Gena Rowlands, and Angelina Jolie. Burstyn plays a woman dealing with her grown son’s battle with AIDS in the film.

In 2000, Burstyn played to a decidedly younger audience with her costarring role opposite teen heartthrob Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the little-seen Walking Across Egypt. She was also featured in a small role in the crime drama The Yards, starring Mark Wahlberg, James Caan, and Joaquin Phoenix. On the small screen, she was a regular on the new comedy series That’s Life, playing the busybody mother of a grown woman who decides to go back to college to get her degree. By far her crowning achievement of that year, however, was her harrowing portrayal of a woman addicted to diet pills in the edgy, disturbing drama Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky. The performance earned Burstyn a sixth overall Academy Award nomination, her fifth for Best Actress.

Burstyn continued to juggle film and television projects. She had a recurring role on the cable hit Big Love and earned an Emmy Award in 2009 for her guest appearance on the crime drama Law & Order: SVU. On the big screen, Burstyn has enjoyed roles in such films as Main Street (2010) and Another Happy Day (2011).

In recent years, Burstyn has thrived on the small screen. She appeared in the 2012 television miniseries Political Animals with Sigourney Weaver and Carla Gugino. She won an Emmy Award for her work on the miniseries the following year. In 2014, Burstyn had a supporting role in the television movie Flowers in the Attic, based on the novel by V.C. Andrews. Her unsettling turn as a disturbed grandmother netted her an Emmy Award nomination. That same year, Burstyn had a recurring role on the sitcom Louie.

Burstyn has been married and divorced three times – to poet William C. Alexander (1950-55), director Paul Roberts (1957-59), and actor Neil Burstyn (1960-1971). She and Neil Burstyn adopted a son, Jefferson. Burstyn serves as the co-president of the Actors Studio alongside Harvey Keitel and Al Pacino. She is also the artistic director for the studio’s New York location.

TELEVISION
Big Love Nancy Davis Dutton (2007-11)
The Book of Daniel Dr. Beatrice Congreve (2006)
That’s Life Dolly DeLucca (2000-02)
The Ellen Burstyn Show Ellen Brewer (1986-87)
The Iron Horse Julie Parsons (1966-67)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Age of Adaline (8-Apr-2015)
Interstellar (26-Oct-2014)
The Calling (5-Aug-2014)
Draft Day (11-Apr-2014)
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You (2-Nov-2011)
Another Happy Day (23-Jan-2011)
Main Street (21-Oct-2010)
The Mighty Macs (17-Oct-2009)
According to Greta (13-May-2009) · Katherine
PoliWood (1-May-2009) · Herself
The Velveteen Rabbit (27-Feb-2009) · Swan
W. (16-Oct-2008)
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (12-Sep-2008) · Addie
Lovely, Still (5-Sep-2008) · Mary Malone
For One More Day (9-Dec-2007)
The Stone Angel (12-Sep-2007) · Hagar
The Fountain (4-Sep-2006) · Dr. Lillian Guzetti
The Wicker Man (31-Aug-2006)
Mrs. Harris (16-Sep-2005)
Our Fathers (11-May-2005)
The Five People You Meet in Heaven (5-Dec-2004)
Brush with Fate (2-Feb-2003)
A Decade Under the Influence (19-Jan-2003) · Herself
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (18-Jan-2003) · Herself
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (3-Jun-2002) · Vivi
Dodson’s Journey (10-Jan-2001)
Mermaid (21-May-2000)
Requiem for a Dream (14-May-2000) · Sara Goldfarb
The Yards (27-Apr-2000) · Val Handler
Walking Across Egypt (17-Dec-1999)
You Can Thank Me Later (23-May-1999)
Night Ride Home (7-Feb-1999)
Playing by Heart (30-Dec-1998)
The Patron Saint of Liars (5-Apr-1998)
Flash (21-Dec-1997)
Deceiver (31-Aug-1997) · Mook
A Deadly Vision (21-Apr-1997)
Timepiece (22-Dec-1996)
Our Son, the Matchmaker (8-May-1996)
The Spitfire Grill (24-Jan-1996) · Hannah Ferguson
How to Make an American Quilt (6-Oct-1995) · Hy
The Baby-Sitters Club (18-Aug-1995)
Roommates (3-Mar-1995)
Getting Gotti (10-May-1994)
When a Man Loves a Woman (29-Apr-1994) · Emily
The Color of Evening (1994)
The Cemetery Club (3-Feb-1993)
Grand Isle (9-Sep-1991)
Picture This: The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas (7-Sep-1991) · Herself
Dying Young (21-Jun-1991) · Mrs. O’Neil
When You Remember Me (7-Oct-1990)
Hanna’s War (11-Nov-1988)
Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam (Oct-1987) [VOICE]
Act of Vengeance (21-Apr-1986)
Into Thin Air (29-Oct-1985)
Twice in a Lifetime (9-Sep-1985)
Surviving (10-Feb-1985)
The Ambassador (23-May-1984)
Silence of the North (23-Oct-1981)
Resurrection (6-Sep-1980) · Edna
Same Time, Next Year (22-Nov-1978) · Doris
A Dream of Passion (Aug-1978)
Providence (25-Jan-1977)
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (9-Dec-1974) · Alice Hyatt
Harry and Tonto (12-Aug-1974) · Shirley
Thursday’s Game (14-Apr-1974)
The Exorcist (26-Dec-1973) · Chris MacNeil
The King of Marvin Gardens (12-Oct-1972) · Sally
The Last Picture Show (3-Oct-1971) · Lois Farrow
Alex in Wonderland (17-Dec-1970)
Pit Stop (14-May-1969)
Goodbye Charlie (18-Nov-1964)
For Those Who Think Young (Jun-1964) · Dr. Pauline Thayer

Source: Ellen Burstyn – Wikipedia

Source: Ellen Burstyn – Actress – Biography.com

Source: Ellen Burstyn: ‘All my life I’ve wondered who I’d be if I had grown up in a loving home’

Source: Ellen Burstyn

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NAME: Dick Van Dyke
OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Television Actor, Comedian, Writer
BIRTH DATE: December 13, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH: West Plains, Missouri
EMMY 1964 for The Dick Van Dyke Show
EMMY 1965 for The Dick Van Dyke Show
EMMY 1966 for The Dick Van Dyke Show
EMMY 1977 for Van Dyke and Company (shared)
GRAMMY Mary Poppins soundtrack
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 1992 at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
TONY for Bye-Bye Birdie

BEST KNOWN FOR: Dick Van Dyke is an American actor and comedian best known for hosting The Dick Van Dyke Show. He’s also known for starring on Diagnosis Murder and for roles in films like Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Night at the Museum.

By high school Dick Van Dyke knew he wanted to be on stage, but he was unsure whether he wanted to be an actor or a Presbyterian minister. After a stint in the Army Air Corps, he worked in advertising, then became a radio announcer, and within a few years he was hosting a TV talk show in New Orleans. His big break came when he was hired to replace Johnny Carson as host of CBS’s Monday-Friday The Morning Show in 1955.

The Morning Show was of course flattened in the ratings by Dave Garroway‘s Today Show. After the program was cancelled Van Dyke was still under contract to CBS, but the network was unsure what to do with him. He found himself hosting CBS Cartoon Theater for kids, then playing sidekick to singer Andy Williams in The Chevy Showroom, and he was a frequent panelist on To Tell the Truth while it was on CBS. Van Dyke’s best early reviews came for two appearances onThe Phil Silvers Show in 1957 and 1958.

When his CBS contract ended, Van Dyke hosted two quickly-cancelled game shows, Mother’s Dayand the comedy-themed Laugh Line, which featured regular panelists Mike Nichols and Elaine May. On Broadway, he appeared in the musical review The Girls Against the Boys with an ancientBert Lahr and a young Nancy Walker. The play ran only two weeks, but Van Dyke won a Theater World Award for his performance. In 1960, he won a Tony starring in the hit Bye Bye Birdie, as a rock’n’roll singer drafted into the military.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Van Dyke, comedian Carl Reiner had created, written and starred in a pilot for an autobiographical sitcom, Head of the Family. Reiner had scripted comedy for TV pioneer Sid Caesar, and in the pilot he played a comedy writer for a Caesar-like TV star. Network executives liked the script and concept, but thought Reiner was wrong for the role of, basically, himself. So the show was retooled with Van Dyke as comedy writer Rob Petrie, the young Mary Tyler Moore as his wife, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam as Van Dyke’s fellow comedy writers, and a small supporting role for Reiner as the Van Dyke character’s obnoxious boss. Of course, Van Dyke was perfect in the role, sometimes tripping over the ottoman and sometimes sidestepping it, as The Dick Van Dyke Show became one of America’s most enduring comedies.

His first film was an adaptation of his Broadway hit Bye Bye Birdie, but with the script rewritten to shortchange his character and instead spotlight Ann-Margret. His most successful film was Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews, but his attempt at a British cockney accent was so awful, the term “Van Dyke accent” is still used to describe failed American attempts to sound British. His other films include The Comic, a drama about comedy with Mickey Rooney; Cold Turkey, a comedy about nicotine withdrawal with Edward Everett Horton; the charming children’s musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (based on Ian Fleming‘s non-Bond novel); and Warren Beatty‘s Dick Tracy, where Van Dyke played a delightfully corrupt district attorney.

He made several attempts to recapture the magic of his Dick Van Dyke Show on TV, and occasionally came close. In the early 1970s he starred in The New Dick Van Dyke Show with Hope Lange as his wife, and the program had its moments — most hilariously in an episode where Van Dyke’s character was in a quandary about attending an awards dinner at a whites-only nightclub. He hosted a short-lived variety show in 1976, Van Dyke and Company, with the expected skits and songs, but the show also featured Van Dyke’s endearing and genuinely funny pantomime segments, and provided Americans’ first prime time glimpse of Andy Kaufman, who stole every segment he was in. In the late-1980s comedy The Van Dyke Show, he played a retired Broadway star who amusingly made life miserable for his son, played by Van Dyke’s real-life son Barry Van Dyke.

Van Dyke has often said that his favorite comic was Stan Laurel, and like Laurel he had exquisite timing, an innate likability on-screen, a rubber face, and a mastery of pratfalls and slapstick. Van Dyke rarely wrote his own material while Laurel wrote more than a dozen of Laurel & Hardy‘s best films, but as a performer Van Dyke may have been Laurel’s equal. Van Dyke and Laurel once met, in the early 1960s, while The Dick Van Dyke Show was growing very popular. Shaking his hero’s hand, he told Laurel his work had inspired him, and that he had honed his comedy technique from watching Laurel’s films. According to Van Dyke, Laurel chuckled and said, “I’ve noticed that.”

It is sad, then, that younger audiences probably know Van Dyke only from his last long-running series, Diagnosis: Murder. Abandoning comedy, he played it straight as Dr Mark Sloan, a folksy doctor who solved murders in his spare time. He had first played Sloan in a 1991 episode of Jake and the Fatman, and the character was resurrected in three made-for-TV movies before the series was launched in 1993. A rather stilted clone of Angela Lansbury‘s Murder, She Wrote, Diagnosis: Murder inexplicably ran for eight seasons, co-starring Van Dyke’s son Barry as Dr Sloan’s son Steve, supposedly an LAPD detective.

Van Dyke has spent his recent years in the company of Michelle Triola, who was famous for suing her former lover Lee Marvin, demanding and winning alimony — “palimony” — although they had never married. His brother is comedic actor Jerry Van Dyke, a sitcom staple who starred in the anti-classic My Mother the Car and had a supporting role on Coach with Craig T. Nelson. Van Dyke’s son, as noted above, is wooden actor Barry Van Dyke, whose best-known work withoutsharing the screen with his father was Galactica 1980, a short-lived revival of Battlestar Galacticawith Lorne Greene.

TELEVISION
Diagnosis Murder Dr. Mark Sloan (1993-2001)
The Carol Burnett Show various (1977)
The New Dick Van Dyke Show Dick Preston (1971-74)
The Dick Van Dyke Show Rob Petrie (1961-66)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (17-Dec-2014)
The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story (24-Apr-2009) · Himself
Murder 101: New Age (14-Jan-2008)
Murder 101: If Wishes Were Horses (9-Aug-2007)
Murder 101: College Can Be Murder (29-Jan-2007)
Night at the Museum (21-Dec-2006)
Curious George (10-Feb-2006) [VOICE]
Murder 101 (7-Jan-2006)
The Gin Game (4-May-2003)
Dick Tracy (15-Jun-1990) · D.A. Fletcher
Drop-Out Father (27-Sep-1982)
The Runner Stumbles (16-Nov-1979)
The Morning After (13-Feb-1974)
Cold Turkey (19-Feb-1971) · Rev. Clayton Brooks
The Comic (19-Nov-1969)
Some Kind of a Nut (1-Oct-1969) · Fred
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (16-Dec-1968) · Caractacus Potts
Never a Dull Moment (26-Jun-1968)
Fitzwilly (20-Dec-1967) · Fitzwilliam
Divorce American Style (21-Jun-1967) · Richard Harmon
Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. (29-Jun-1966)
The Art of Love (30-Jun-1965)
Mary Poppins (27-Aug-1964)
What a Way to Go! (12-May-1964) · Edgar Hopper
Bye Bye Birdie (4-Apr-1963) · Albert Peterson

Source: Dick Van Dyke

Source: Dick Van Dyke – Wikipedia

Source: The Dick Van Dyke Show – Wikipedia

Source: Dick Van Dyke – Film Actor, Television Actor, Comedian, Writer – Biography.com

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Today is the 80th birthday of the actress and Seattle girl made good: Dyan Cannon. Author! Author! is my favorite film of hers, she is just so natural, so effortless (which actually takes a lot of unnatural effort to achieve). She also happens to be the mother of Cary Grant’s only child, which seals her Hollywood royalty status forever. The world is a better place because she is in it.

NAME: Dyan Cannon
DATE OF BIRTH: January 4, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH: Tacoma, WA
HEIGHT: 5’5”
MISS WEST SEATTLE:  1955
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME:  6608 Hollywood Boulevard

BEST KNOWN FOR: Dyan Cannon is an American film and television actress, director, screenwriter, editor, and producer. She has been nominated for three Academy Awards.

Cannon was born Samille Diane Friesen in the state of Washington in 1937. Her mother, Claire (née Portnoy), was a housewife, and her father, Ben Friesen, sold life insurance. Cannon was raised in the Jewish faith of her mother, who had emigrated from Russia; Dyan’s father was Baptist. She attended West Seattle High School. Her younger brother is jazz bassist David Friesen.

Cannon made her film debut in 1960 in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond; she had appeared on television since the late 1950s, including a guest appearance on Bat Masterson as Mary Lowery in the 1959 episode entitled “Lady Luck” and again as Diane Jansen in “The Price of Paradise”. She made another guest appearance in 1959 on CBS’s Wanted: Dead or Alive starring Steve McQueen in episode 54 “Vanishing Act” as Nicole McCready. About this time, she also appeared on another CBS western, Johnny Ringo, starring Don Durant, and on Jack Lord’s ABC western adventure drama, Stoney Burke. She also appeared on an episode of Hawaiian Eye, using her name Diane Cannon, in 1961, opposite Tracey Steele, Robert Conrad, and Connie Stevens.

In 1963, Cannon joined the national touring production of the Broadway musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying in which she played Rosemary.

She portrayed Mona Elliott, with fellow guest star Franchot Tone, in the episode “The Man Behind the Man” of the 1964 CBS drama series The Reporter, with Harry Guardino in the title role. She also made guest appearances on 77 Sunset Strip, the perennial western series Gunsmoke, The Untouchables, the 1960 episode of the syndicated series Two Faces West entitled “Sheriff of the Town” and the 1962 Ripcord episode called “The Helicopter Race”.

Cannon’s first major film role came in 1969’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, which earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. In 1971 she starred in five films: The Love Machine, Doctors’ Wives, The Anderson Tapes with Sean Connery, The Burglars, and Such Good Friends, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. Cannon starred opposite Burt Reynolds in Shamus (1973) as well as the mystery The Last of Sheila that year, and gave a critically acclaimed performance in Child Under a Leaf in 1974.

She became the first Oscar-nominated actress to be nominated in the Best Short Film, Live Action Category for Number One (1976), a project which Cannon produced, directed, wrote and edited. It was a story about adolescent sexual curiosity. In 1978, Cannon co-starred in Revenge of the Pink Panther. That same year, she appeared in Heaven Can Wait, for which she received another Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1976, she hosted Saturday Night Live during its first season. She was a guest in the fourth season of The Muppet Show in 1979.

In the 1980s, Cannon, who is also a singer/songwriter, appeared in Honeysuckle Rose (1980) with Willie Nelson, Author! Author! with Al Pacino, Deathtrap (1982) with Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine, Caddyshack II (1988), as well as several made-for-TV movies.

In the 1990s, she appeared on the popular television shows Diagnosis: Murder and The Practice, as well as being a semi-regular on Ally McBeal. She made appearances in films such as That Darn Cat (1997), 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997), and Out to Sea (1997) with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. In 2005, she appeared in Boynton Beach Club, a movie about aging Floridians who have just lost their spouses.

On July 22, 1965, she married actor Cary Grant, who was 33 years her senior. They had one daughter, Jennifer (born February 26, 1966), who also is an actress. They were divorced on March 21, 1968. In 1972, she told an interviewer that she was involved in Primal therapy. Cannon married real estate investor Stanley Fimberg in 1985. They divorced in 1991.

She is an avid fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and has attended Lakers games for over thirty years.

TELEVISION
Three Sisters Honey Bernstein-Flynn (2001-02)
Ally McBeal Whipper Cone (1997-2000)
Ally Whipper Cone (1999)

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
The End of Innocence (10-Sep-1990)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Boynton Beach Club (21-Oct-2005) · Lois
Kangaroo Jack (11-Jan-2003) · Anna Carbone
My Mother, the Spy (2000)
Diamond Girl (13-Jun-1998)
Beverly Hills Family Robinson (11-Apr-1998)
Out to Sea (2-Jul-1997)
8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (18-Apr-1997) · Annette Bennett
That Darn Cat (14-Feb-1997) · Mrs. Flint
The Sender (1997)
Based on an Untrue Story (20-Sep-1993)
The Pickle (30-Apr-1993)
Christmas in Connecticut (13-Apr-1992)
The End of Innocence (10-Sep-1990)
Caddyshack II (22-Jul-1988) · Elizabeth Pearce
Jenny’s War (3-Jun-1985)
Author! Author! (18-Jun-1982) · Alice Detroit
Deathtrap (19-Mar-1982) · Myra Bruhl
Coast to Coast (3-Oct-1980)
Honeysuckle Rose (18-Jul-1980)
Lady of the House (14-Nov-1978)
Revenge of the Pink Panther (14-Jul-1978) · Simone
Heaven Can Wait (28-Jun-1978)
The Last of Sheila (14-Jun-1973)
Shamus (31-Jan-1973)
Such Good Friends (21-Dec-1971)
Le Casse (4-Dec-1971) · Lena
The Love Machine (14-Aug-1971)
The Anderson Tapes (17-Jun-1971) · Ingrid
Doctors’ Wives (3-Feb-1971)
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (18-Sep-1969) · Alice
This Rebel Breed (19-Mar-1960)
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (3-Feb-1960) · Dixie

Author of books:
Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant (2011)

Source: Dyan Cannon – Wikipedia

Source: Dyan Cannon

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Today is the 105th birthday of Jackson Pollock.  Some of his art pushes some people’s definitions of art because they do not see it as a representation of anything they recognize.  Fortunately, the definition of art is not if someone can see a red barn on a grassy hill in it.  His art elicits emotions, questions and wonder; it draws the viewer in, blurs the periphery and creates a pure experience.  The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

NAME: Jackson Pollock
OCCUPATION: Painter
BIRTH DATE: January 28, 1912
DEATH DATE: August 11, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH: Cody, Wyoming
PLACE OF DEATH: East Hampton, New York
FULL NAME: Paul Jackson Pollock
REMAINS: Buried, Green River Cemetery, East Hampton, NY

BEST KNOWN FOR: Famous 20th century artist Jackson Pollock revolutionized the world of modern art with his unique abstract painting techniques.

Paul Jackson Pollock was born on January 28, 1912 in Cody, Wyoming. His father, LeRoy Pollock, was a farmer and a government land surveyor, and his mother, Stella May McClure, was a fierce woman with artistic ambitions. The youngest of five brothers, he was a needy child and was often in search of attention that he did not receive.

During his youth, Pollock’s family moved around the West, to Arizona and throughout California. When Pollock was 8, his father, who was an abusive alcoholic, left the family, and Pollock’s older brother, Charles, became like a father to him. Charles was an artist, and was considered to be the best in the family. He had a significant influence on his younger brother’s future ambitions. While the family was living in Los Angeles, Pollock enrolled in the Manual Arts High School, where he learned to draw but had little success expressing himself. He was eventually expelled for starting fights.

In 1930, at age 18, Pollock moved to New York City to live with his brother, Charles. He soon began studying with Charles’s art teacher, representational regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton. Pollock spent much of his time with Benton, often babysitting Benton’s young son, and the Bentons eventually became like the family Pollock felt he never had.

When Pollock’s father died suddenly in 1933, he fell into a deep depression. He got drunk one night and started a fight with Charles’s wife, Elizabeth. During the fight, Pollock threatened her with an ax, and then turned around and sliced through one of his brothe’’s paintings, which had been scheduled for an upcoming exhibition. Pollock was forced to leave Charles’s house, and in 1934, his brother Sanford arrived in New York to help take care of him.

During the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt started a program called the Public Works of Art Project, one of many intended to jumpstart the economy. Artists such as Pollock were given $24.86 to do 20 hours of work a week. The program resulted in thousands of works of art by Pollock and contemporaries such as José Clemente Orozco, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko.

But despite being busy with work, Pollock could not stop drinking. In 1937, he began receiving psychiatric treatment for alcoholism from a Jungian analyst who fueled his interest in symbolism and Native American art. In 1939, Pollock discovered Pablo Picasso‘s show at the Museum of Modern Art. Picasso’s artistic experimentation encouraged Pollock to push the boundaries of his own work.

“Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was.”

In 1942, Pollock met Lee Krasner, a Jewish contemporary artist and an established painter in her own right, at a party. She later visited Pollock at his studio and was impressed with his art. They soon became romantically involved.

Around this time, Peggy Guggenheim began expressing interest in Pollock’s paintings. During a meeting she had with the painter Pete Norman, he saw some of Pollock’s paintings lying on the floor and commented that Pollock’s art was possibly the most original American art he had seen. Guggenheim immediately put Pollock on contract.

Krasner and Pollock married in October 1945, and with the help of a $2,000 loan from Guggenheim, bought a farmhouse in the Springs area of East Hampton, on Long Island. Guggenheim gave Pollock a stipend to work, and Krasner dedicated her time to helping promote and manage his artwork. Pollock was happy to be in the country again, surrounded by nature, which had a major impact on his projects. He was energized by his new surroundings and by his supportive wife. In 1946, he converted the barn to a private studio, where he continued to develop his “drip” technique, the paint literally flowing off of his tools and onto the canvases that he typically placed on the floor.

In 1947, Guggenheim turned Pollock over to Betty Parsons, who was not able to pay him a stipend but would give him money as his artwork sold.

Pollock’s most famous paintings were made during this “drip period” between 1947 and 1950. He became wildly popular after being featured in a four-page spread, on August 8, 1949, in Life magazine. The article asked of Pollock, “Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?” The Life article changed Pollock’s life overnight. Many other artists resented his fame, and some of his friends suddenly became competitors. As his fame grew, some critics began calling Pollock a fraud, causing even him to question his own work. During this time he would often look to Krasner to determine which paintings were good, unable to make the differentiation himself.

In 1949, Pollock’s show at the Betty Parsons Gallery sold out, and he suddenly became the best-paid avant-garde painter in America. But fame was not good for Pollock, who, as a result of it, became dismissive of other artists, even his former teach and mentor, Thomas Hart Benton. Furthermore, acts of self-promotion made him feel like a phony, and he would sometimes give interviews in which his answers were scripted. When Hans Namuth, a documentary photographer, began producing a film of Pollock working, Pollock found it impossible to “perform” for the camera. Instead, he went back to drinking heavily.

Pollock’s 1950 show at the Parsons gallery did not sell, though many of the paintings included, such as his “Number 4, 1950,” are considered masterpieces today. It was during this time that Pollock began to consider symbolic titles misleading, and instead began using numbers and dates for each work he completed. Pollock’s art also became darker in color. He abandoned the “drip” method, and began painting in black and white, which proved unsuccessful. Depressed and haunted, Pollock would frequently meet his friends at the nearby Cedar Bar, drinking until it closed and getting into violent fights.

Concerned for Pollock’s well-being, Krasner called on Pollock’s mother to help. Her presence helped to stabilize Pollock, and he began to paint again. He completed his masterpiece, “The Deep,” during this period.

But as the demand from collectors for Pollock’s art grew, so too did the pressure he felt, and with it his alcoholism.

Overwhelmed with Pollock’s needs, Krasner was also unable to work. Their marriage became troubled, and Pollock’s health was failing. He started dating other women, and by 1956, he had quit painting, and his marriage was in shambles. Krasner reluctantly left for Paris to give Pollock space.

Just after 10 p.m. on August 11, 1956, Pollock, who had been drinking, crashed his car into a tree less than a mile from his home. Ruth Kligman, his girlfriend at the time, was thrown from the car and survived. Another passenger, Edith Metzger, was killed, and Pollock was thrown 50 feet into the air and into a birch tree. He died immediately.

Krasner returned from France to bury Pollock, and subsequently went into a mourning that would last the rest of her life. Retaining her creativity and productivity, Krasner lived and painted for another 20 years. She also managed the sale of Pollock’s paintings, carefully distributing them to museums. Before her death, Krasner set up the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, which gives grants to young, promising artists. When Krasner died on June 19, 1984, the estate was worth $20 million.

In December 1956, the year after his death, Pollock was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and then another in 1967. His work has continued to be honored on a large scale, with frequent exhibitions at both the MoMA in New York and the Tate in London. He remains one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Source: Jackson Pollock – Wikipedia

Source: Jackson Pollock Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story

Source: Jackson Pollock – Painter – Biography.com

Source: Jackson Pollock

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Today is the 100th birthday of the singer, actor, talk show host and former owner of significant mid-century modern Palm Springs architecture: Dinah Shore. I remember watching her talk show with my grandmother. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Dinah Shore

OCCUPATION: Singer, Television Personality
BIRTH DATE: March 1, 1917
DEATH DATE: February 24, 1994
EDUCATION: Vanderbilt University
PLACE OF BIRTH: Winchester, Tennessee
PLACE OF DEATH: Beverly Hills, California
REMAINS: Cremated, Hillside Memorial Park, Culver City, CA
BROADCASTING AND CABLE HALL OF FAME
EMMY 1955 Best Female Singer
EMMY 1956 Best Female Singer
EMMY 1957 Best Female Personality
EMMY 1958 for The Dinah Shore Show
EMMY 1959 for The Dinah Shore Show
EMMY 1973 for Dinah’s Place
DAYTIME EMMY 1974 for Dinah’s Place
DAYTIME EMMY 1976 for Dinah!
GOLDEN GLOBE 1956 for Disneyland (single episode)
WORLD GOLF HALL OF FAME 1994
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6914 Hollywood Blvd.

BEST KNOWN FOR: Dinah Shore was an award-winning television personality and singer known for her string of TV shows, including Dinah!, Dinah’s Place, and Dinah and Friends.

On March 1, 1917, Dinah Shore was born as Frances Rose Shore in Winchester, Tennessee. While a student at Vanderbilt University, Shore started performing her own short program on a Nashville radio station. After completing her degree in sociology, she moved to New York City in 1938, intending to pursue a career as a singer.

Shore soon landed a job singing on a New York radio station called WNEW. Recording success took a little longer, but in the early 1940s she began to release hits such as “Jim” and “Blues in the Night.” During World War II, Shore often performed for the troops, singing songs like “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” and “I’ll Walk Alone,” which reached No. 1.

Shore also began to appear in films in the 1940s. She worked with Gypsy Rose Lee in Belle of the Yukon (1944) and was seen in Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), a biographical musical about Jerome Kern. However, Shore did not take to film work and only appeared in seven movies.

In the late 1940s, Shore continued to enjoy success on the charts. Her hits from this period include such songs as “I Love You for Sentimental Reasons” and “Buttons and Bows.”

In 1951, Shore’s self-titled variety show made its debut; it was the start of what would turn out to be a long-running career on television. The Dinah Shore Chevy Show began in 1956. The program, which featured Shore singing “See the USA in your Chevrolet,” achieved even greater success and stayed on the air until 1963.

Shore’s television career evolved over the years, but her warm personality consistently charmed audiences. In the 1970s, she became a popular talk show host with a series of shows: Dinah’s Place (1970-74), Dinah! (1974-80) and Dinah and Friends (1979-1984).

Shore’s last talk show, A Conversation with Dinah, aired on the Nashville Network from 1989 to 1991. One of television’s most popular personalities, she won 10 Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award and a Golden Globe during her career.

Shore was passionate about golf and sponsored a women’s golf tournament in California—the Dinah Shore Classic—for many years. Her contributions to the sport earned her honorary membership in the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour Hall of Fame.

Shore’s first husband was actor George Montgomery. The two were married from 1943 to 1962. She later had a brief marriage to tennis player Maurice Fabian Smith. In the 1970s, Shore became known for her relationship with a much younger man—actor Burt Reynolds.

Shore died of cancer on February 24, 1994, at her home in Beverly Hills, California. She was 76 years old. Shore was survived by her two children from her first marriage, Melissa and John.

TELEVISION
The Dinah Shore Show Host (1951-56)
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show Host (1956-63)
Dinah’s Place Host (1970-74)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Christmas at Pee Wee’s Playhouse (1988) · Herself
HealtH (12-Sep-1980) · Herself
Death Car on the Freeway (25-Sep-1979)
Oh, God! (7-Oct-1977) · Herself
Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick (1-Apr-1952)
Fun and Fancy Free (27-Sep-1947) [VOICE]
Till the Clouds Roll By (5-Dec-1946) · Julie Sanderson
Make Mine Music (20-Apr-1946) · Herself [VOICE]
Belle of the Yukon (26-Dec-1944) · Lettie Candless
Follow the Boys (25-Apr-1944) · Herself
Up in Arms (17-Feb-1944) · Virginia
Thank Your Lucky Stars (1-Oct-1943) · Herself

Author of books:
Someone’s in the Kitchen With Dinah (1971, cookbook)
The Dinah Shore Cook Book (1983, cookbook)
The Dinah Shore American Kitchen: Homestyle Cooking With Flair (1990, cookbook)

Source: Dinah Shore

Source: Dinah Shore – Wikipedia

Source: Dinah Shore – Singer, Television Personality – Biography.com

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Today is the 92nd birthday of the actress Kim Stanley.  She was the narrator of To Kill A Mockingbird and played Francis Farmer‘s mother in Frances, two gorgeous films that are so very powerful and important.  Her body of work is so incredibly impressive and valuable.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss because she has left.

NAME: Patricia Reid
DATE OF BIRTH: February 11, 1925
BIRTHPLACE: Tularosa, New Mexico, U.S.
DATE OF DEATH: August 20, 2001 (aged 76)
PLACE OF DEATH: Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.
EMMY 1963 for Ben Casey, “A Cardinal Act of Mercy”
EMMY 1985 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

BEST KNOWN FOR: American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances.

Kim Stanley (born Patricia Reid) was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances.

She began her acting career in theatre, and subsequently attended the Actors Studio in New York City, New York. She received the 1952 Theatre World Award for her role in The Chase (1952), and starred in the Broadway productions of Picnic (1953) and Bus Stop (1955). Stanley was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her roles in A Touch of the Poet (1959) and A Far Country (1962).

During the 1950s, Stanley was a prolific performer in television, and later progressed to film, with a well-received performance in The Goddess (1959). She was the narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and starred in Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), for which she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was less active during the remainder of her career; two of her later film successes were as the mother of Frances Farmer in Frances (1982), for which she received a second Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, and as Pancho Barnes in The Right Stuff (1983). She received an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie for her performance as Big Mama in a television adaptation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1985).

She did not act during her later years, preferring the role of teacher, in Los Angeles, California, and later Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she died in 2001, of uterine cancer.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (19-Aug-1984) · Big Mama
The Right Stuff (9-Sep-1983) · Pancho Barnes
Frances (3-Dec-1982) · Lillian Farmer
The Three Sisters (1966)
Seance on a Wet Afternoon (20-Jun-1964) · Myra
The Goddess (24-Jun-1958)

Source: Kim Stanley – Wikipedia

Source: Kim Stanley

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Today is the 91st birthday of the actress Cloris Leachman. She has had a life and is still grinding. You have to love and appreciate longevity. The world is a better place because she is in it.

NAME: Cloris Leachman
OCCUPATION: Actor
BIRTH DATE: April 30, 1926
EDUCATION: Roosevelt High School, Northwestern University, The Actors Studio, Illinois State University
PLACE OF BIRTH: Des Moines, Iowa
OSCAR for Best Supporting Actress 1972 for The Last Picture Show
GOLDEN GLOBE 1976 for Phyllis (television)
EMMY 1973 for A Brand New Life (single performance)
EMMY 1974 for Mary Tyler Moore (episode “The Lars Affair”)
EMMY 1975 for Cher (single performance)
EMMY 1984 for Screen Actors Guild 50th Anniversary Celebration
EMMY 1998 for Promised Land (guest)
EMMY 2002 for Malcolm in the Middle (guest)
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6435 Hollywood Blvd. (television)

BEST KNOWN FOR: American actress Cloris Leachman has had a long, successful career in television and film, playing a range of dramatic and comedic roles.

Cloris Leachman was born on April 30, 1926, in Des Moines, Iowa. She is the oldest of three daughters of Cloris (Wallace) and Berkeley Claiborne Leachman. Her father worked in the family lumber business, and her mother encouraged Cloris’s early interest in entertaining.

In 1946, while attending Northwestern University, Leachman competed in the Miss America pageant as Miss Chicago. She didn’t win the Miss America title, but she used her pageant winnings to move to New York City and begin an acting career. She attended the Actors Studio in its earliest years, studying with famous director Elia Kazan. She was successful in landing theater roles on Broadway: she performed in Shakespeare’s As You Like It (with Katherine Hepburn) and the original run of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, among other productions.

Leachman also proved herself as a versatile television actor, working consistently in bit parts on many popular series. In the 1950s and 1960s, she added shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Untouchables, Gunsmoke and Lassie to her resumé. She also took roles in motion pictures, including the film noir drama Kiss Me Deadly in 1955.

Leachman gained greater recognition in her film career in the late 1960s and 1970s as she continued to play a variety of roles. She took the small but memorable part of a prostitute in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), appearing alongside Paul Newman. Two years later, her performance as a frustrated, adulterous housewife in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show earned her an Academy Award (best supporting actress) in 1971.

This success was followed by a supporting role in another film directed by Bogdanovich, the literary adaptation Daisy Miller (1974). Leachman went on to act in three comedies directed by Mel Brooks, showcasing her signature combination of willowy, blonde good looks and zany comedic delivery in Young Frankenstein in 1974; High Anxiety in 1977; and History of the World, Part I in 1982.

Meanwhile, Leachman’s television career also continued to accelerate. From 1970 to 1975, Leachman appeared on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as Mary’s hilariously self-centered landlady Phyllis Lindstrom. After the close of the series, Leachman starred in the spin-off sitcom Phyllis from 1975 to 1977. She reinvented herself each decade with parts on popular sitcoms, including The Facts of Life, from 1986 to 1988, and Malcolm in the Middle, on which she played a grandmother from 2001 to 2006. Leachman has won eight Emmy awards for television performances throughout her career.

Leachman continues to act in film and television. She performed on Dancing with the Stars in 2008, and landed a part on the comedy-drama series Raising Hope in 2010. Leachman published a memoir Cloris: My Autobiography, in 2009.

Leachman has been married once, to film producer and director George Englund, from 1953 to 1979. The couple had five children together: Bryan (deceased), Morgan, Adam, Dinah and George Jr.

TELEVISION
Raising Hope Maw Maw (2010-)
Dancing with the Stars Contestant (2008)
Malcolm in the Middle Ida (Lois’s mother, 2001-06)
The Ellen Show Dot Richmond (2001-02)
Touched by an Angel Ruth (1997-2003)
Walter & Emily Emily Collins (1991-92)
The Nutt House Ms. Frick (1989)
The Facts of Life Beverly Ann Stickle (1986-88)
Phyllis Phyllis Lindstrom (1975-77)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show Phyllis Lindstrom (1970-75)
Dr. Kildare Rhoda Kirsh (1965)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Wedding Ringer (14-Jan-2015)
Adult World (18-Apr-2013)
The Croods (15-Feb-2013) [VOICE]
Gambit (7-Nov-2012)
The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (29-Aug-2012)
The Fields (24-Sep-2011)
American Cowslip (24-Jul-2009) · Sandy
Love Takes Wing (4-Apr-2009)
New York, I Love You (5-Feb-2009) · Mitzie
The Women (12-Sep-2008)
Lake Placid 2 (28-Apr-2007)
Beerfest (25-Aug-2006)
Scary Movie 4 (12-Apr-2006)
Mrs. Harris (16-Sep-2005)
Sky High (29-Jul-2005)
The Longest Yard (27-May-2005) · Lynette
Spanglish (17-Dec-2004) · Evelyn
Alex and Emma (16-Jun-2003) · Grandmother
Manna From Heaven (17-Jan-2003)
The Amati Girls (Oct-2000)
Hanging Up (16-Feb-2000) · Pat
Music of the Heart (6-Sep-1999)
The Iron Giant (31-Jul-1999) · Mrs. Tensedge [VOICE]
Annabelle’s Wish (21-Oct-1997) [VOICE]
Beavis and Butthead Do America (20-Dec-1996) · Old Woman on Plane and Bus [VOICE]
Now and Then (20-Oct-1995)
A Troll in Central Park (7-Oct-1994) · Queen Gnorga [VOICE]
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble (30-Oct-1993) · Aunts Agatha and Sofia
The Beverly Hillbillies (15-Oct-1993) · Granny
My Boyfriend’s Back (6-Aug-1993)
Picture This: The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas (7-Sep-1991) · Herself
The Giant of Thunder Mountain (1-Mar-1991)
In Broad Daylight (3-Feb-1991)
Love Hurts (9-Nov-1990)
Fine Things (16-Oct-1990)
Texasville (28-Sep-1990)
Prancer (17-Nov-1989)
Hansel and Gretel (May-1987) · The Witch
Walk Like a Man (17-Apr-1987) · Margaret Shand
My Little Pony: The Movie (20-Jun-1986) [VOICE]
Shadow Play (1986)
Deadly Intentions (19-May-1985)
Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (14-May-1984)
The Demon Murder Case (6-Mar-1983)
History of the World: Part I (12-Jun-1981)
This Time Forever (1981)
Foolin’ Around (17-Oct-1980)
Herbie Goes Bananas (25-Jun-1980)
The Oldest Living Graduate (7-Apr-1980) · Maureen
Scavenger Hunt (21-Dec-1979)
S.O.S. Titanic (23-Sep-1979)
The Muppet Movie (22-Jun-1979)
The North Avenue Irregulars (9-Feb-1979)
Backstairs at the White House (29-Jan-1979)
High Anxiety (25-Dec-1977) · Nurse Diesel
It Happened One Christmas (11-Dec-1977)
The Mouse and His Child (18-Nov-1977) [VOICE]
Death Scream (26-Sep-1975)
A Girl Named Sooner (18-Jun-1975)
Crazy Mama (Jun-1975) · Melba
Young Frankenstein (15-Dec-1974) · Frau Blücher
Death Sentence (2-Oct-1974)
Daisy Miller (22-May-1974)
Thursday’s Game (14-Apr-1974)
The Migrants (3-Feb-1974)
Happy Mother’s Day, Love George (17-Aug-1973)
Charley and the Angel (23-Mar-1973)
A Brand New Life (20-Feb-1973)
Dillinger (2-Feb-1973) · Anna Sage
The Last Picture Show (3-Oct-1971) · Ruth Popper
The Steagle (15-Sep-1971)
The People Next Door (26-Aug-1970)
WUSA (19-Aug-1970)
Lovers and Other Strangers (12-Aug-1970)
Silent Night, Lonely Night (16-Dec-1969)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (23-Sep-1969) · Agnes
The Chapman Report (5-Oct-1962) · Miss Selby
The Rack (2-Nov-1956)
Kiss Me Deadly (18-May-1955) · Christina

Source: Cloris Leachman – Actor – Biography.com

Source: Cloris Leachman

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Today is the 95th birthday of Nancy Walker.  My natural draw to 70’s mystery detective TV dramas made it natural that I loved her on McMillan & Wife.  Her entire resume reads impressively, the best TV shows of the time, she was on them, iconic TV shows of every decade, she guest starred.  The world is a better place because she was in it and still feel the loss that she las left.

NAME: Nancy Walker
OCCUPATION: Theater Actress, Television Actress, Film Actor/Film Actress
BIRTH DATE: May 10, 1922
DEATH DATE: March 25, 1992
PLACE OF BIRTH: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
PLACE OF DEATH: Studio City, California
ORIGINALLY: Anna Myrtle Swoyer

BEST KNOWN FOR: Actress Nancy Walker appeared in films and on stage before playing Ida Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rosie in the Bounty paper towel commercials.

Actress Nancy Walker was born Anna Myrtle Swoyer on May 10, 1922, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Perhaps best known as the overbearing mother Ida Morgenstern on the 1970s comedy series Rhoda, Nancy Walker was an established stage performer for decades before making it in television. The daughter of vaudeville comedian, she landed her first Broadway role at the age of 19, appearing in 1941’s Best Foot Forward. Walker went on to star in the original production of On the Town (1944).

Nancy Walker also landed film roles, including 1943’s Girl Crazy with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, and 1954’s Lucky Me with Doris Day. Largely devoted to stage work, she made several television guest appearances in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s, she had her two most notable television roles. From 1971 to 1976, she played the sharp, outspoken housekeeper Mildred on McMillan & Wife, starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James. Walker’s character, Mrs. Ida Morgenstern, appeared on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off Rhoda.

As Ida Morgenstern, she had audiences laughing at her depiction of the tough, loving and smothering mother as well as identifying with the conflicts between her character and her daughter Rhoda played by Valerie Harper. On Rhoda, Ida harassed two of her children—her youngest daughter Brenda was played by Julie Kavner. She was nominated for an Emmy Award three times for her work on McMillan & Wife and four times for her performance on Rhoda.

A great supporting actress, Nancy Walker’s attempt to have her own series failed. The Nancy Walker Show aired for one season from 1976 to 1977. After its cancellation, she returned to Rhoda for its final season. Throughout the rest of the 1970s and 1980s, Walker mostly appeared on television as a guest star, stopping in on such hit shows, as The Love Boat, Fame, Happy Days and The Golden Girls, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination. In 1990, she returned to series television with True Colors, a comedy about interracial marriage. The show lasted for two years and included Walker’s final performances.

Nancy Walker died on March 25, 1992, in Studio City, California. She was married to David Craig since 1951 and the couple had one child together.

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR
Can’t Stop the Music (20-Jun-1980)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Murder by Death (23-Jun-1976) · Maid
Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (26-May-1976)
Death Scream (26-Sep-1975)
Thursday’s Game (14-Apr-1974)
40 Carats (28-Jun-1973)
The World’s Greatest Athlete (14-Feb-1973)
Every Man Needs One (13-Dec-1972)
Stand Up and Be Counted (May-1972)
Lucky Me (9-Apr-1954) · Flo
Broadway Rhythm (19-Jan-1944) · Trixie Simpson
Girl Crazy (26-Nov-1943) · Polly Williams
Best Foot Forward (29-Jun-1943) · Blind Date

Source: Nancy Walker – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Nancy Walker – Theater Actress, Film Actress, Television Actress – Biography.com

Source: Nancy Walker, 69, of ‘Rhoda’ And TV Commercials, Is Dead – NYTimes.com

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Today is the 127th birthday of Hollywood actress and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. There were some really great scenes of her in the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford Feud that personalized her a bit more than I think I had ever really considered. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Hedda Hopper
OCCUPATION: Theater Actress, Film Actor/Film Actress
BIRTH DATE: June 2, 1890
DEATH DATE: February 1, 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH: Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania
PLACE OF DEATH: Hollywood, California
ORIGINALLY: Elda Furry
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME:   6313-1/2 Hollywood Blvd (motion pictures)

BEST KNOWN FOR: Hedda Hopper, a woman with amazing hats, was an American gossip columnists during the first half of the 1900s. She was also an actress and radio personality.

Gossip columist and actress Elda Furry, better known as Hedda Hopper, was born on June 2, 1890, in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. One of nine children, Furry studied singing at the Carter Conservatory of Music in Pittsburgh during high school.

At the age of 18, she ran away after her Quaker parents rejected her plans to pursue a career in musical theater. She worked as a chorus girl and appeared in amateur theater productions before making her Broadway debut in 1909 in a small role in The Motor Girl. In 1913, Furry appeared with the popular comedic actor, and notorious womanizer, DeWolf Hopper in the musical comedy A Matinee Idol. Later that same year, she became Hopper’s much-older fifth wife.

She took the name Hedda Hopper in 1919; the first name was reportedly chosen by a numerologist. After making her big screen debut in the 1916 silent film The Battle of Hearts, Hopper found success in Hollywood as a character actress for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), appearing in over 100 films over the next three decades. In 1922, she and DeWolf Hopper divorced.

By the mid-1930s, Hopper was working as a freelance actress (without a studio contract) and her film career had fallen into a slump. Her famous sense of style and outspoken personality led to jobs at Elizabeth Arden cosmetics and as a fashion commentator on a Hollywood radio station. In 1937, the Esquire Feature Syndicate was looking for a Hollywood columnist and found one in Hopper. Untried, her column was sold to 13 papers and a career was launched.

When the column began appearing in the prestigious Los Angeles Times, her status shot upward and her power grew. Her column appeared in 85 metropolitan papers, 3,000 small-town dailies, and 2,000 weeklies. When she replaced John Chapman at The New York Daily News, she picked up an additional audience of 5,750,000 daily and 7,500,000 on Sunday. She appeared on weekly radio shows and wrote two best sellers: From Under My Hat and The Whole Truth and Nothing But.

Hedda’s large, flamboyant hats became her trademarks–she reportedly bought about 150 new hats a year. Hopper also acquired a reputation for journalistic bitchiness, which actually made her more popular. She took on anything or anyone who went against her set of “American” values. She doggedly spoke out against the threat of communism, real or imagined, in Hollywood. During the infamous “blacklisting” era, she destroyed the reputations of many people with hearsay.

She badgered Charlie Chaplin about the way he used women and America. She blasted Louis B. Mayer for lacking generosity. Her 10-year feud with her rival columnist Louella Parsons was legendary.  After publishing a “blind item” on Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy’s relationship, Tracy confronted her at Ciro’s and kicked her in the rear.  Similarly, after she had printed a story about an extramarital affair between Joseph Cotten and Deanna Durbin, Cotten ran into Hopper at a social event and pulled out her chair, only to continue pulling it out from under her when she sat down.

Hopper never remarried and lived to see her son, William (Bill) DeWolf Hopper Jr., achieve success as Paul Drake on the TV drama Perry Mason.

She died of pneumonia in 1966.  She is buried at Rose Hill Cemetery,Altoona, Pennsylvania.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Hopper has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6313½ Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Oscar (4-Mar-1966) · Herself
The Patsy (2-Aug-1964) · Herself
Pepe (21-Dec-1960) · Herself
Sunset Blvd. (4-Aug-1950) · Herself
Breakfast in Hollywood (26-Feb-1946)
Reap the Wild Wind (19-Mar-1942) · Aunt Henrietta
Cross Country Romance (12-Jul-1940) · Mrs. North
The Women (1-Sep-1939) · Dolly DuPuyster
Midnight (15-Mar-1939) · Stephanie
Thanks for the Memory (11-Nov-1938)
Dangerous to Know (11-Mar-1938)
Maid’s Night Out (4-Mar-1938) · Mrs. Harrison
Tarzan’s Revenge (7-Jan-1938) · Penny Reed
Artists & Models (4-Aug-1937)
Topper (16-Jul-1937) · Mrs. Stuyvesant
You Can’t Buy Luck (30-Apr-1937) · Mrs. Agnes White
Dracula’s Daughter (11-May-1936) · Lady Esme Hammond
The Dark Hour (18-Feb-1936)
I Live My Life (4-Oct-1935) · Alvin’s Mother
Alice Adams (14-Aug-1935) · Mrs. Palmer
One Frightened Night (1-May-1935)
Bombay Mail (6-Jan-1934)
Beauty for Sale (1-Sep-1933) · Mme. Sonia
Pilgrimage (12-Jul-1933)
The Barbarian (12-May-1933) · American Tourist
Men Must Fight (17-Feb-1933) · Mrs. Chase
Speak Easily (13-Aug-1932) · Mrs. Peets
Downstairs (6-Aug-1932) · Countess De Marnac
Skyscraper Souls (16-Jul-1932) · Ella Dwight
As You Desire Me (28-May-1932) · Madame Montari
Night World (5-May-1932)
The Man Who Played God (10-Feb-1932)
West of Broadway (28-Nov-1931)
Flying High (14-Nov-1931)
The Common Law (17-Jul-1931) · Mrs. Clare Collis
War Nurse (22-Oct-1930)
Our Blushing Brides (19-Jul-1930)
Let Us Be Gay (11-Jul-1930)
Holiday (3-Jul-1930)
His Glorious Night (28-Sep-1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (6-Jul-1929) · Lady Maria
The Drop Kick (25-Sep-1927)
Don Juan (6-Aug-1926)
Zander the Great (2-May-1925)
Sherlock Holmes (7-Mar-1922) · Madge Larrabee

Source: Hedda Hopper – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Hedda Hopper – Theater Actress, Film Actress – Biography.com

Source: The Powerful Rivalry of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons | Vanity Fair

Source: Hedda Hopper

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Today is the 91st birthday of Paul Lynde.  He had a lengthy and varied career, but I remember him best as Uncle Arthur.  Also, there is the EPIC of Halloween episode of The Paul Lynde Show.  Don’t worry, I included the whole episode below.  I cannot even prepare you for the experience.  It is everything.  The world is a better place because he was in it and still feels the loss that he has left.

Peter Marshall: Paul, why do Hell’s Angels wear leather?
Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

NAME: Paul Lynde
OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Television Actor, Comedian, Game Show Host
BIRTH DATE: June 13, 1926
DEATH DATE: January 10, 1982
EDUCATION: Northwestern University
PLACE OF BIRTH: Mount Vernon, Ohio
PLACE OF DEATH: Beverly Hills, California

BEST KNOWN FOR: Actor Paul Lynde is best known for his work on the fledgling game show Hollywood Squares, where he worked for 15 years.

Paul Lynde studied drama with classmates Charlotte Rae, Patricia O’Neal and Charlton Heston. He moved to New York in 1948 to hone his comedic skills by performing stand-up routines. In 1960 he was cast as the father of a star-struck teenager in the Broadway production Bye, Bye Birdie, the success of which led to the recording of a comedy album and regular spots on The Perry Como Show.

Actor. Born June 13, 1926, in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Lynde attended Northwestern University, where he studied drama with classmates Charlotte Rae, Patricia O’Neal, and Charlton Heston. In 1948, upon his graduation, he moved to New York and honed his comedic skills by performing stand-up routines.

In the early 1950s, Lynde landed a role in a Broadway revue New Faces of 1952. Featuring the now-classic monologue “The Trip of the Month Club,” Lynde was singled out for his manic portrayal of a hapless but determinedly upbeat survivor of a tourist trip to Africa. Despite an auspicious Broadway debut, Lynde did not return to stage work for quite some time. Over the next eight years, he made guest appearances on variety and radio shows.

In 1960, Lynde was cast as the father of a star-struck teenager in the Broadway production Bye, Bye Birdie a role that he reprised in the 1963 film adaptation, which starred Dick Van Dyke and Ann-Margaret. For Lynde, the success of Bye, Bye Birdie led to the recording of a comedy album and regular spots on The Red Buttons Show and The Perry Como Show.

Over the next few years, Lynde appeared in supporting roles in lighthearted films like Under the Yum-Yum Tree (1963), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), and The Glass Bottom Boat (1966). Lynde forged a lucrative career as a character actor with parts on the popular TV series The Munsters, I Dream of Jeanie, and Bewitched. In 1967, he debuted on the fledgling game show Hollywood Squares, where, as the permanent center square, he found an outlet to showcase his comedic talents for the next 15 years.

In 1972, playing an uptight attorney and father at odds with his liberal-minded son, Lynde starred in the short-lived sitcom The Paul Lynde Show. The series’ failure exacerbated Lynde’s pre-existing drinking problem, which led to numerous run-ins with the law and frequent arrests for public intoxication.

On January 10, 1982, at the age of 55, Paul Lynde died of a massive heart attack brought on by years of substance abuse.

TELEVISION
Bewitched Uncle Arthur (irregularly, 1965-71)
The Paul Lynde Show Paul Simms (1972-73)
Temperatures Rising Dr. Paul Mercy (1973-74)
The Hollywood Squares Center Square (1968-79 and 1980-81)

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Villain (20-Jul-1979)
Rabbit Test (9-Apr-1978)
Hugo the Hippo (25-Dec-1975) [VOICE]
Journey Back to Oz (5-Dec-1974) [VOICE]
Charlotte’s Web (22-Feb-1973) [VOICE]
Gidget Gets Married (4-Jan-1972)
Gidget Grows Up (30-Dec-1969)
How Sweet It Is! (21-Aug-1968)
The Glass Bottom Boat (9-Jun-1966) · Homer Cripps
Beach Blanket Bingo (14-Apr-1965) · Bullets
Send Me No Flowers (14-Oct-1964) · Mr. Akins
For Those Who Think Young (Jun-1964) · Sid Hoyt
Under the Yum Yum Tree (23-Oct-1963) · Murphy
Bye Bye Birdie (4-Apr-1963) · Mr. McAfee
Son of Flubber (16-Jan-1963)
New Faces of 1952 (19-Feb-1954) · Himself

Source: Paul Lynde – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Paul Lynde – Game Show Host, Film Actor, Television Actor, Comedian – Biography.com

Source: Paul Lynde

Source: Paul Lynde

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Today is the 152nd birthday of the first Native American physician, activist, and today’s Google Doodle Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte. Her story should inspire everyone, it touches on obstacles, determination, and persistence. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Susan La Flesche Picotte
OCCUPATION: Medical Professional, Doctor
BIRTH DATE: June 17, 1865
DEATH DATE: September 18, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH: Omaha Reservation, Nebraska
PLACE OF DEATH: Bancroft, Nebraska

BEST KNOWN FOR: Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first Native American woman to become a physician in the United States. A member of the Omaha Reservation, she worked tirelessly for her people.

Susan La Flesche was born on the Omaha Indian Reservation, in northeast Nebraska, on June 17, 1865. She was the youngest of four daughters of Chief Joseph La Flesche (known as “Iron Eyes”) of the Omaha tribe and his wife, Mary Gale (One Woman). Both parents were of mixed race and wanted their children to live in the white and Native American worlds. After attending a mission school on the reservation, young Susan attended the Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies and later the Hampton Institute in Virginia, from which she graduated in 1886.

While growing up on the Omaha reservation, several experiences led La Flesche to consider a medical education. She had experienced the poor living conditions of the Omaha people and once watched a sick Native American woman die because a white doctor refused to give her care. La Flesche knew she had to do something to change the predicament of her people.

While at the Hampton Institute, Susan La Flesche was encouraged by one of her mentors, Martha Waldron, to acquire a scholarship from the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs. When that scholarship was granted, La Flesche became the first person to receive federal aid for a professional education. In 1886 she began to attend the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, one of only a few medical schools at that time that accepted women.

While pursuing her education, La Flesche continued to experience life in both the white and Native American worlds. During her schooling in Philadelphia, she was in awe of the lavish dresses she saw in the department stores. When she was fitted for a dress, she wrote to one of her sisters that it made her “become a lady of fashion.” In the same letter, she paradoxically told her sister that she yearned for a pair of moccasins.

In 1889, Susan La Flesche completed the three-year medical program at the top of her class of 36, and following a one-year internship, she became the first Native American woman physician in the country. She returned home to work at the government boarding school, caring for 1,200 white and Native American patients. While there, she strove for major changes in the health care of all patients, promoting the importance of cleanliness and ventilation. She especially counseled tribal people on the benefits of fresh air, discarding trash and killing flies, which were known to be transmitters of tuberculosis and other diseases.

Serving as a reservation doctor proved to be very challenging for La Flesche. She was paid only $500 a year, which was ten times less than an Army or Navy doctor, and whenever the Bureau of Indian Affairs ran out of supplies for the tribe, La Flesche would be forced to use her own money to pay for them. During the severe winter of 1891, she would see more than 100 patients a month, making many house calls in sub-zero weather. Over time, the 20-hour workdays took a toll on her health, and in 1893, she was bed-ridden for two months.

In 1894, Susan La Flesche married Henry Picotte, a Sioux Indian from South Dakota. The couple moved to Bancroft, Nebraska, where she set up a private practice and they raised two children. In a time of Victorian values, when women were generally expected to be full-time mothers and housekeepers after marriage, La Flesche Picotte worked full-time as a professional.

For most of his adult life, Henry Picotte suffered from alcoholism, and often La Flesche Picotte had to take care of him while simultaneously running her medical practice. The experience would eventually lead her to the Temperance Movement, and when Henry died in 1905, La Flesche Picotte became determined to eliminate the scourge of alcohol on reservations. In 1906, she led a delegation to Washington, D.C., to lobby for the prohibition of alcohol on Indian lands.

Her opposition to alcohol on the reservations led her to fight for other causes and to attract some controversy. She supported a new Native American religious movement, the Peyote Religion, a pro-temperance Christian denomination that sought to introduce the hallucinogenic drug peyote into Native American spiritual traditions. This put her in opposition with many of her white medical colleagues. She also became an activist for the tribal people’s legal status and citizenship and fought against land fraud perpetrated on the Omaha people. Her activism hit home when she confronted the Bureau of Indian Affairs bureaucracy to prove she was more competent than a male relative to oversee her husband’s estate after his death.

Susan La Flesche Picotte also pushed for modern hygiene and disease prevention standards among the Omaha people. In 1913, she fulfilled a lifelong dream by opening a hospital on the Omaha reservation town of Walthill, Nebraska. Despite these accomplishments, La Flesche Picotte suffered from chronic pain and respiratory problems, and as she grew older and her health declined, she became unable to carry on her many causes. In March 1915, she became debilitated, and she died on September 18, 1915, of what was believed to be bone cancer.

Susan La Flesche Picotte’s legacy extends beyond being the first Native American female physician. She championed many causes of Native Americans in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and she is considered to be an early trailblazer of the women’s movement. La Flesche Picotte was ahead of her time in pursuing causes many considered unimportant. She never shied away from speaking truth to power, even when it meant facing criticism from both white and tribal people. Her courage and compassion made her a unique and effective leader.

Source: Susan La Flesche Picotte – Wikipedia

Source: Changing the Face of Medicine | Susan La Flesche Picotte

Source: Susan La Flesche Picotte: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Source: Susan La Flesche Picotte – Medical Professional, Doctor – Biography.com

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Today is the 64th birthday of the singer/songwriter/actor/activist Cyndi Lauper. I remember when her “She’s So Unusual” album was released. She was unusual, she was different, she was everything that we needed, but didn’t know we needed. She has changed the landscape of music and activism over her 30+ year career and we are all the better for it.

NAME: Cyndi Lauper
OCCUPATION: Songwriter, Singer
BIRTH DATE: June 22, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH: Astoria, New York
GRAMMY: Best New Artist (1984)
EMMY: (1995)

BEST KNOWN FOR: Cyndi Lauper is an American singer-songwriter who rose to fame in the 1980s with a string of pop hits such as “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper was born on June 22, 1953, in Astoria, New York. Her earliest childhood days were spent in Brooklyn, but when she was about four years old, the family moved to Ozone Park, Queens, where she lived in a railroad-style apartment through her teenage years. Growing up, Lauper felt like an outcast. Her parents divorced when she was five. Lauper and her two siblings were raised by her mother, who worked as a waitress to support the family — and who loved the arts and frequently took her children to Manhattan to see Shakespeare plays or visit art museums. Lauper did not do particularly well in school, and was reportedly kicked out of several parochial schools in her youth. Despite her hard times, she discovered a love of singing and music at an early age, and was writing her own songs by the age of 12.

After eventually getting a high school equivalency degree, Lauper worked a number of odd jobs before her music career took off. She waitressed, served as an office assistant, and even sang in a Japanese restaurant for a time. During this time, Lauper also played in a number of bands. She had her first taste of success with the band Blue Angel, which landed a record deal. The group made one record together before splitting up.

Going solo, Lauper burst onto the charts with her debut album, She’s So Unusual. With her eclectic clothes, flamboyantly styled hair, and contagious pop melodies, Lauper took the music world by surprise. The 1983 recording sold almost 5 million copies and featured her first hit, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” The song became a female party anthem, and the video for it went into heavy rotation on MTV. Lauper became wildly popular almost overnight, scoring a string of hits that included “Time After Time,” “She Bop” and “All Through the Night.” She was further rewarded for her work when she won the 1984 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. In 1985, she released “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough” for the soundtrack of the film The Goonies.

Her 1986 follow-up album, True Colors, sold nearly 1 million copies. Exploring new creative avenues, Lauper made her film debut in 1988 starring opposite Jeff Goldblum in the comedy Vibes. The movie performed poorly in both the commercial and critical realms. In 1989, Lauper released her third album A Night to Remember, which featured the hit “I Drove All Night,” but had weak overall sales compared to her previous albums.

Lauper had success as an actress in a recurring role on the TV sitcom Mad About You, which starred Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser. In 1995, Lauper won an Emmy for her work on the series. She later appeared on such shows as That’s So Raven and Bones.

While she explored acting, Lauper continued to make music. Although Hatful of Stars (1993) was not a commercial success, it was an artistic achievement for Lauper. The album was widely praised by critics for songs, which took on difficult topics such as domestic abuse and homophobia. Twelve Deadly Cyns, a compilation of her hits, was released in 1995. In 1997, Lauper received critical praise for Sisters of Avalon, which included all new music, and she followed up with a holiday album Merry Christmas. . .Have a Nice Life! (1998).

Lauper didn’t release new music until At Last (2003), a collection of pop standards. Her 2008 album Bring Ya to the Brink (2008) featured dance tracks including the Grammy-nominated song “High and Mighty.” Her album, Memphis Blues (2010), featured her take on several classic blues songs.

In 2012, the pop icon wrote her autobiography Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir. The following year, she took her talents to Broadway writing the music and lyrics for Kinky Boots with a book by Harvey Fierstein. Kinky Boots won six Tony Awards, including for best musical, best leading man and best original score. Directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Jerry Mitchell, the production centers on the life of Charlie Price, who, after inheriting his father’s nearly bankrupt shoe factory, discovers the man he’s meant to be with the help of an entertainer named Lola.

In 2013, Lauper celebrated the 30th anniversary of the album that launched her career, She’s So Unusual, with a tour. In 2016, she released Detour, a country album featuring duets with Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Jewel and Alison Krauss.

Outside of music, Lauper has been a tireless activist for the gay rights movement. “Civil rights have to be afforded to every American, no matter what their color, gender or sexual preference. You can’t say this is a democracy if that isn’t the case,” she told WWD. She helped establish the True Colors Fund, which works to promote awareness and fight for equality.

On the fund’s website, Lauper writes “Everyone—whether straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender—should be allowed to show their true colors, and be accepted and loved for who they are. Every American should be guaranteed equal treatment at school, at work, in their relationships, in service of their country . . . and in every part of their lives.” In addition to touring to raise money for the fund, Lauper competed on the reality show The Celebrity Apprentice to help out her charity.

Lauper has been married to actor David Thornton since 1991. The couple has a son, Declyn, together.

Source: Cyndi Lauper – Songwriter, Singer – Biography.com

Source: Cyndi Lauper – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Today is the 137th birthday of the activist and role model Helen Keller. We seemed to learn a lot about her when we were kids and then her lessons seem to fall out of style as we grow older. The truth is, her lessons are important for all ages, but most important for adults as we are the ones that can put those concepts into action. I have included some quotes of hers below that resonate with me, I suggest you do some investigating and find some that do the same for you. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Helen Keller
OCCUPATION: Educator, Journalist
BIRTH DATE: June 27, 1880
DEATH DATE: June 1, 1968
EDUCATION: Radcliffe College, Horace Mann School for the Deaf, Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, Cambridge School for Young Ladies
PLACE OF BIRTH: Tuscumbia, Alabama
PLACE OF DEATH: Easton, Connecticut
PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM: 1964
FRENCH LEGON OF HONOR
NATIONAL WOMENS HALL OF FAME: 1973

BEST KNOWN FOR: American educator Helen Keller overcame the adversity of being blind and deaf to become one of the 20th century’s leading humanitarians, as well as co-founder of the ACLU.

Helen Keller was the first of two daughters born to Arthur H. Keller and Katherine Adams Keller. She also had two older stepbrothers. Keller’s father had proudly served as an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The family was not particularly wealthy and earned income from their cotton plantation. Later, Arthur became the editor of a weekly local newspaper, the North Alabamian.

Keller was born with her senses of sight and hearing, and started speaking when she was just 6 months old. She started walking at the age of 1.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

In 1882, however, Keller contracted an illness—called “brain fever” by the family doctor—that produced a high body temperature. The true nature of the illness remains a mystery today, though some experts believe it might have been scarlet fever or meningitis. Within a few days after the fever broke, Keller’s mother noticed that her daughter didn’t show any reaction when the dinner bell was rung, or when a hand was waved in front of her face. Keller had lost both her sight and hearing. She was just 19 months old.

As Keller grew into childhood, she developed a limited method of communication with her companion, Martha Washington, the young daughter of the family cook. The two had created a type of sign language, and by the time Keller was 7, they had invented more than 60 signs to communicate with each other. But Keller had become very wild and unruly during this time. She would kick and scream when angry, and giggle uncontrollably when happy. She tormented Martha and inflicted raging tantrums on her parents. Many family relatives felt she should be institutionalized.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

Looking for answers and inspiration, in 1886, Keller’s mother came across a travelogue by Charles Dickens, American Notes. She read of the successful education of another deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgman, and soon dispatched Keller and her father to Baltimore, Maryland to see specialist Dr. J. Julian Chisolm. After examining Keller, Chisolm recommended that she see Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell met with Keller and her parents, and suggested that they travel to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts. There, the family met with the school’s director, Michael Anaganos. He suggested Helen work with one of the institute’s most recent graduates, Anne Sullivan. And so began a 49-year relationship between teacher and pupil.

On March 3, 1887, Sullivan went to Keller’s home in Alabama and immediately went to work. She began by teaching six year-old Helen finger spelling, starting with the word “doll,” to help Keller understand the gift of a doll she had brought along. Other words would follow. At first, Keller was curious, then defiant, refusing to cooperate with Sullivan’s instruction. When Keller did cooperate, Sullivan could tell that she wasn’t making the connection between the objects and the letters spelled out in her hand. Sullivan kept working at it, forcing Helen to go through the regimen.

As Keller’s frustration grew, the tantrums increased. Finally, Sullivan demanded that she and Keller be isolated from the rest of the family for a time, so that Keller could concentrate only on Sullivan’s instruction. They moved to a cottage on the plantation.

The most pathetic person in the world is some one who has sight but no vision.

In a dramatic struggle, Sullivan taught Keller the word “water”; she helped her make the connection between the object and the letters by taking Keller out to the water pump, and placing Keller’s hand under the spout. While Sullivan moved the lever to flush cool water over Keller’s hand, she spelled out the word w-a-t-e-r on Helen’s other hand. Keller understood and repeated the word in Sullivan’s hand. She then pounded the ground, demanding to know its “letter name.” Sullivan followed her, spelling out the word into her hand. Keller moved to other objects with Sullivan in tow. By nightfall, she had learned 30 words.

In 1890, Keller began speech classes at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston. She would toil for 25 years to learn to speak so that others could understand her. From 1894 to 1896, she attended the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City. There, she worked on improving her communication skills and studied regular academic subjects.

What I’m looking for is not out there, it is in me.

Around this time, Keller became determined to attend college. In 1896, she attended the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, a preparatory school for women. As her story became known to the general public, Keller began to meet famous and influential people. One of them was the writer Mark Twain, who was very impressed with her. They became friends. Twain introduced her to his friend Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive. Rogers was so impressed with Keller’s talent, drive and determination that he agreed to pay for her to attend Radcliffe College. There, she was accompanied by Sullivan, who sat by her side to interpret lectures and texts.

By this time, Keller had mastered several methods of communication, including touch-lip reading, Braille, speech, typing and finger-spelling. With the help of Sullivan and Sullivan’s future husband, John Macy, Keller wrote her first book, The Story of My Life. It covered her transformation from childhood to 21-year-old college student. Keller graduated, cum laude, from Radcliffe in 1904, at the age of 24.

In 1905, Sullivan married John Macy, an instructor at Harvard University, a social critic and a prominent socialist. After the marriage, Sullivan continued to be Keller’s guide and mentor. When Keller went to live with the Macys, they both initially gave Keller their undivided attention. Gradually, however, Anne and John became distant to each other, as Anne’s devotion to Keller continued unabated. After several years, they separated, though were never divorced.

While they were saying it couldn’t be done, it was done.

After college, Keller set out to learn more about the world and how she could help improve the lives of others. News of her story spread beyond Massachusetts and New England. She became a well-known celebrity and lecturer by sharing her experiences with audiences, and working on behalf of others living with disabilities. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Keller tackled social and political issues, including women’s suffrage, pacifism and birth control. She testified before Congress, strongly advocating to improve the welfare of blind people. In 1915, along with renowned city planner George Kessler, she co-founded Helen Keller International to combat the causes and consequences of blindness and malnutrition. In 1920, she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union.

When the American Federation for the Blind was established in 1921, Keller had an effective national outlet for her efforts. She became a member in 1924, and participated in many campaigns to raise awareness, money and support for the blind. She also joined other organizations dedicated to helping those less fortunate, including the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund (later called the American Braille Press).

Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each others welfare, social justice can never be attained.

Soon after she graduated from college, Keller became a member of the Socialist Party, most likely due in part to her friendship with John Macy. Between 1909 and 1921, she wrote several articles about socialism and supported Eugene Debs, a Socialist Party presidential candidate. Her series of essays on socialism, entitled “Out of the Dark,” described her views on socialism and world affairs.

It was during this time that Keller first experienced public prejudice about her disabilities. For most of her life, the press had been overwhelmingly supportive of her, praising her courage and intelligence. But after she expressed her socialist views, some criticized her by calling attention to her disabilities. One newspaper, the Brooklyn Eagle, wrote that her “mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development.”

In 1936, Keller’s beloved teacher and devoted companion, Anne Sullivan, died. She had experienced health problems for several years and, in 1932, lost her eyesight completely. A young woman named Polly Thomson, who had begun working as a secretary for Keller and Sullivan in 1914, became Keller’s constant companion upon Sullivan’s death.

There is beauty in everything, even in silence and darkness.

In 1946, Keller was appointed counselor of international relations for the American Foundation of Overseas Blind. Between 1946 and 1957, she traveled to 35 countries on five continents. In 1955, at age 75, Keller embarked on the longest and most grueling trip of her life: a 40,000-mile, five-month trek across Asia. Through her many speeches and appearances, she brought inspiration and encouragement to millions of people.

Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life, was used as the basis for 1957 television drama The Miracle Worker. In 1959, the story was developed into a Broadway play of the same title, starring Patty Duke as Keller and Anne Bancroft as Sullivan. The two actresses also performed those roles in the 1962 award-winning film version of the play.

Keller suffered a series of strokes in 1961, and spent the remaining years of her life at her home in Connecticut. During her lifetime, she received many honors in recognition of her accomplishments, including the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in 1936, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, and election to the Women’s Hall of Fame in 1965. She also received honorary doctoral degrees from Temple University and Harvard University and from the universities of Glasgow, Scotland; Berlin, Germany; Delhi, India; and Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Additionally, she was named an Honorary Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland.

Keller died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, just a few weeks before her 88th birthday. During her remarkable life, Keller stood as a powerful example of how determination, hard work, and imagination can allow an individual to triumph over adversity. By overcoming difficult conditions with a great deal of persistence, she grew into a respected and world-renowned activist who labored for the betterment of others.

Author of books:
The Story of My Life (1902, memoir)
Optimism: An Essay (1903)
The Spirit of Easter (1904)
Our Duties to the Blind (1904, pamphlet)
The World I Live In (1908)
The Practice of Optimism (1909)
The Song of the Stone Wall (1910, poetry)
The Miracle of Life (1910)
Out of the Dark: Essays, Letters, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision (1913)
My Religion (1927)
Midstream: My Later Life (1929)
We Bereaved (1929)
Double Blossoms (1931, anthology)
Peace at Eventide (1932)
Helen Keller in Scotland: A Personal Record Written By Herself (1933)
Helen Keller’s Journal (1938, memoir)
Let Us Have Faith (1940)
Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy: A Tribute by the Foster Child of Her Mind (1955)
The Open Door (1957)

Appears on postage stamps:
USA, Scott #1824 (15 cents, with Anne Sullivan, issued 27-Jun-1980)

Source: Helen Keller – Educator, Journalist – Biography.com

Source: Helen Keller – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: See Helen Keller and the Leaders She Inspired | TIME

Source: Helen Keller

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Today is the 100th birthday of the actress Susan Hayward.  I love her story, her drive, and her determination.  I know it is a bit kitsch to point out that she is in Valley of the Dolls, but she is brilliant init. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.

NAME: Susan Hayward
OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Pin-up
BIRTH DATE: June 30, 1917
DEATH DATE: March 14, 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH: Brooklyn, New York
PLACE OF DEATH: Hollywood, California
ORIGINALLY: Edythe Marrenner
OSCAR for Best Actress 1959 for I Want to Live!
GOLDEN GLOBE 1953 for With a Song in My Heart
GOLDEN GLOBE 1959 for I Want to Live!
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6251 Hollywood Blvd.

BEST KNOWN FOR: Film actress Susan Hayward earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for her role in Smash-Up, and later won for her performance in I Want to Live.

Born Edythe Marrener on June 30, 1917, to a poverty strickenfamily in Brooklyn, New York, Susan Hayward’s childhood was difficult. She was hit by a car at the age of 7 and stranded at home in a body cast for months. The experience left Hayward with limp and painful memories of a debility she would never forget.

Hayward’s life took an unexpected turn when she was cast as the lead in a school play at age 12. The attention she received quickly turned her into a compulsive star. By 1935, a sexy swagger had replaced Hayward’s childhood limp, and the gorgeous 17-year-old possessed an hourglass figure, a brassy Brooklyn accent and a burning desire for fortune and fame. She began working as a model to help support her family, and when she was featured in the Saturday Evening Post in 1937, all of America was introduced to the red-headed siren from Brooklyn. The same year, David O. Selznick offered Hayward an audition for the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. Though her lack of experience took her out of serious consideration, Hayward decided to trade in her return ticket and stay in Hollywood. After signing a contract with Warner Bros., she changed her name to Susan Hayward.

Hayward was driven to succeed as an actress and worked virtually non-stop. Offered the starring role in Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman in 1947, Hayward dazzled both audiences and critics, receiving her first Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. Hayward received four more nominations over the next 12 years, eventually winning for her work in the wildly successful I Want to Live in 1958. Sadly, the actress’s happiness was eclipsed by the death of her husband Eaton Chalkey. And in 1972, just as she was emerging from her despair, she was diagnosed with cancer.

Refusing to surrender to the illness without a fight, Susan Hayward even managed to present the Academy for Best Actress in 1974. On March 14, 1975, at age 57, the irrepressible Brooklyn Bombshell died, leaving behind legions of fans all over the world.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
The Revengers (21-Jun-1972)
Valley of the Dolls (15-Dec-1967) · Helen Lawson
The Honey Pot (21-Mar-1967) · Mrs. Sheridan
Where Love Has Gone (2-Nov-1964) · Valerie Hayden Miller
Stolen Hours (16-Oct-1963)
I Thank a Fool (14-Sep-1962) · Christine Allison
Back Street (11-Oct-1961)
Ada (25-Aug-1961) · Ada Gillis
The Marriage-Go-Round (6-Jan-1961)
Woman Obsessed (27-May-1959)
Thunder in the Sun (8-Apr-1959)
I Want to Live! (18-Nov-1958) · Barbara Graham
Top Secret Affair (30-Jan-1957) · Dottie Peale
The Conqueror (21-Feb-1956)
I’ll Cry Tomorrow (25-Dec-1955) · Lillian Roth
Soldier of Fortune (17-May-1955) · Jane Hoyt
Untamed (1-Mar-1955)
Garden of Evil (9-Jul-1954) · Leah Fuller
Demetrius and the Gladiators (18-Jun-1954) · Messalina
White Witch Doctor (1-Jul-1953)
The President’s Lady (21-May-1953)
The Lusty Men (24-Oct-1952) · Louise Merritt
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (18-Aug-1952) · Helen
With a Song in My Heart (4-Apr-1952) · Jane Froman
David and Bathsheba (10-Aug-1951)
I Can Get It for You Wholesale (4-Apr-1951)
Rawhide (25-Mar-1951)
I’d Climb the Highest Mountain (17-Feb-1951) · Mary Elizabeth Eden Thompson
My Foolish Heart (25-Dec-1949)
House of Strangers (1-Jul-1949) · Irene Bennett
Tulsa (26-May-1949) · Cherokee Lansing
The Saxon Charm (29-Sep-1948)
Tap Roots (25-Aug-1948)
The Lost Moment (21-Nov-1947) · Tina Bordereau
They Won’t Believe Me (16-Jul-1947) · Verna Carlson
Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (Mar-1947) · Angie Evans Conway
Canyon Passage (17-Jul-1946) · Lucy Overmire
Deadline at Dawn (3-Apr-1946) · June Goth
And Now Tomorrow (22-Nov-1944) · Janice Blair
The Hairy Ape (2-Jul-1944) · Mildred Douglas
The Fighting Seabees (10-Mar-1944)
Jack London (24-Nov-1943)
Hit Parade of 1943 (26-Mar-1943)
Young and Willing (5-Feb-1943)
Star Spangled Rhythm (18-Dec-1942) · Herself
I Married a Witch (30-Oct-1942) · Estelle Masterson
The Forest Rangers (21-Oct-1942)
Reap the Wild Wind (19-Mar-1942) · Drusilla Alston
Among the Living (12-Dec-1941)
Sis Hopkins (12-Apr-1941)
Adam Had Four Sons (27-Mar-1941) · Hester
$1000 a Touchdown (4-Oct-1939)
Beau Geste (2-Aug-1939)
Girls on Probation (22-Oct-1938) · Gloria Adams

Source: Susan Hayward – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Source: Susan Hayward – Film Actress, Classic Pin-Ups – Biography.com

Source: Susan Hayward

Source: Susan Hayward

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Today is the 93rd birthday of Eva Marie Saint.  If ever asked to pick my favorite “Hitchcock Blonde,” I would have a very hard time picking just one. Eva Marie Saint is one of them for sure, maybe the first. Her cool sexiness in North by Northwest is par none. My sister and I must have watched that film at least 25 times after school, it was the beginning of my obsession with Mid Century everything and that amazing Paramount VistaVision! You should also watch On The Waterfront to truly see her range, it is her first film and beyond legendary.  The world is a better place because she is in it.

NAME: Eva Marie Saint
OCCUPATION: Actor
BIRTH DATE: July 4, 1924
EDUCATION: BA Theater Arts, Bowling Green State University (1946)
PLACE OF BIRTH: Newark, NJ
OSCAR for Best Supporting Actress 1955 for On the Waterfront
EMMY 1990 for People Like Us
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6624 Hollywood Blvd.
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 6730 Hollywood Blvd.

BEST KNOWN FOR: Eva Marie Saint won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her film debut, On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando, in which she told him to “Let your conscience tell you what to do”.

Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront (1954), and later starred in the thriller film North by Northwest (1959), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Saint received Golden Globe and BAFTA award nominations for the drama film A Hatful of Rain (1957) and won an Emmy Award for the television miniseries People Like Us (1990). Her film career also includes roles in Raintree County (1957), Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), and Superman Returns (2006).

Saint’s first feature-film role, at age 30, was in On the Waterfront (1954), directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando – a performance for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her role as Edie Doyle (whose brother’s death sets the film’s drama in motion), which she won over such leading contenders as Claire Trevor, Nina Foch, Katy Jurado, and Jan Sterling also earned her a British Academy of Film and Television Award nomination for “Most Promising Newcomer.” In his New York Times review, film critic Bosley Crowther wrote:

“In casting Eva Marie Saint – a newcomer to movies from TV and Broadway – Mr. Kazan has come up with a pretty and blond artisan who does not have to depend on these attributes. Her parochial school training is no bar to love with the proper stranger. Amid scenes of carnage, she gives tenderness and sensitivity to genuine romance.”

In a 2000 interview in Premiere magazine, Saint recalled making the hugely influential film:

“[Elia] Kazan put me in a room with Marlon Brando. He said ‘Brando is the boyfriend of your sister. You’re not used to being with a young man. Don’t let him in the door under any circumstances’. I don’t know what he told Marlon; you’ll have to ask him – good luck! [Brando] came in and started teasing me. He put me off-balance. And I remained off-balance for the whole shoot.”

The film was a major success and launched Saint’s movie career. She starred with Don Murray in the pioneering drug-addiction drama, A Hatful of Rain (1957), for which she received a nomination for the “Best Foreign Actress” award from the British Academy of Film and Television, and the lavish Civil War epic Raintree County (also 1957) with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

Director Alfred Hitchcock surprised many by choosing Saint over dozens of other candidates for the femme fatale role in what was to become a suspense classic North by Northwest (1959) with Cary Grant and James Mason. Written by Ernest Lehman, the film updated and expanded upon the director’s early “wrong man” spy adventures of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, including The 39 Steps, Young and Innocent, and Foreign Correspondent. North by Northwest became a box-office hit and an influence on spy films for decades. The film ranks number forty on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.

At the time of the film’s production, much publicity was gained by Hitchcock’s decision to cut Saint’s waist-length blonde hair for the first time in her career. Hitchcock explained at the time, “Short hair gives Eva a more exotic look, in keeping with her role of the glamorous woman of my story. I wanted her dressed like a kept woman – smart, simple, subtle and quiet. In other words, anything but the bangles and beads type.” The director also worked with Saint to make her voice lower and huskier and even personally chose costumes for her during a shopping trip to Bergdorf Goodman in New York City.

The change in Saint’s screen persona, coupled with her adroit performance as a seductive woman of mystery who keeps Cary Grant (and the audience) off-balance, was widely heralded. In his New York Times review of August 7, 1959, critic Bosley Crowther wrote, “In casting Eva Marie Saint as [Cary Grant’s] romantic vis-a-vis, Mr. Hitchcock has plumbed some talents not shown by the actress heretofore. Although she is seemingly a hard, designing type, she also emerges both the sweet heroine and a glamorous charmer.” In 2000, recalling her experience making the picture with Cary Grant and Hitchcock, Saint said, “[Grant] would say, ‘See, Eva Marie, you don’t have to cry in a movie to have a good time. Just kick up your heels and have fun.’ Hitchcock said, ‘I don’t want you to do a sink-to-sink movie again, ever. You’ve done these black-and-white movies like On the Waterfront. It’s drab in that tenement house. Women go to the movies, and they’ve just left the sink at home. They don’t want to see you at the sink.’ I said, ‘I can’t promise you that, Hitch, because I love those dramas.'”

She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for motion pictures at 6624 Hollywood Boulevard, and television at 6730 Hollywood Boulevard.

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