WA2K Radio is now on the air

Ok, ok, so for the 30,000 plus folks who will be on our highways this weekend, maybe we had better go along with Try:

Will The Circle Be Unbroken

I was standing by my window
on one cold and cloudy day
when I saw that hearse come rolling
for to carry my mother away

Lord I told that undertaker
undertaker please drive slow
for this body you are hauling
Lord, I hate to see her go.



I will follow close behind her
try to hold up and be brave
but I could not hide my sorrow
when they laid her in her grave

Will the circle be unbroken
Bye and Bye Lord Bye and Bye
There's a better Home Awaiting
in the sky Lord in the sky

If you want to hear it, go here:

http://www.stevenmenke.com/Carter%20Family%20.htm

That was very moving Miss Letty.



MAGNIFICENT MUSIC MACHINE
(Hillman Hall)

He's got nothin' but talent and time on his hands
He loves his music hangs out with his band
He's got a big hit ambitions and No 1 dreams
He's a high rollin' a magnificent music machine

[ fiddle - banjo ]
He hit town with nothin' but his old guitar
With visions of grandeur and bein' a star
He writes them and sings them like you'd never seen
He's a high rollin' a magnificent music machine

[ fiddle - banjo ]
Well sometimes he's dejected sometimes he's afraid
But he knows what he's in for till his dues are paid
Sometimes they're fat girls and sometimes they're lean
He's a high rollin' a magnificent music machine

Well, folks, Where there's music, there is mischief, I suppose, so.....

From a Mean Machine:

The horror of a mad dog
Is chilling my blood in my brains
The lights disappearing
The cloud getting pregnant with rain
There's a rumor going round that
The master of darkness will come

They say he'll come from the sky
And there's nothing we can do
There'll be no place to hide
He's coming for me- he's coming for you!

Somewhere in time
Where creatures of the night never sleep
Lying and waiting, growing stronger
Planning our final defeat

They say he'll come from the sky...

Mean machine
Comes from the sky
Stake your claims if you want to survive
Mean machine
Comes from the sky
Don't try to run if you don't want to die
Mean machine
Comes from the sky
Stake your claims if you want to survive

Solo

Mean machine
Comes from the sky...

Why does everything go to the sky or come from the sky, Try?

The workday is almost over here by me! Then it'll be a

3 Day Weekend by Insinuations


My god built the world in 4 days
Then he took a 3 day weekend
a 3 day weekend
I want a 3 day weekend

3/4 of the world wears blue jeans
while I'm not awake
in my special
my blue jean dream
on my three day weekend

If I can't have it my way
I'm gonna run away
for 3 weekends and a day
thats a 7 day weekend
and y'all don't know where I am

My goodness, Arthur. Are you really going away for the long holiday?

If so, buddy, there will be mucho traffic:



TRAFFIC JAM
Key: C Tune: "Workin On the Railroad""

I'm just waitin' in the traffic
half of my workin' day,
so I had to get a cell phone
to take some calls along the way,
had to move out to the suburbs,
had to buy an SUV.
Now I'm waitin' in the traffic
for half an eternity.

I'm steppin' on the gas,
I'm leanin' on the horn,
ragin' in the traffic jam, I am.
I'm standin' on the brake,
I'm flippin' you the bird,
I'm ragin' in the traffic jam.

Oh. How I hate this drivin'!
Gotta get in to work (it's so far).
Oh. How I hate what I do there,
But I gotta pay for my car.

Damn traffic jam,
Ragin' in this jam I am,
Damn traffic jam,
This is where I am.

RANK STRANGERS
(Tom T. Hall)


I wandered again to my home in the mountains
Where in dawn's early light I was happy and free
I looked for my friends but I never could find them
I found they were all rank strangers to me

Everybody I met seemed to be a rank stranger
No mother no dad not a friend could I see
They knew not my name and I knew not their faces
I found they were all rank strangers to me

[ fiddle ]
They've all moved away said the voice of a stranger
To the beautiful home by the bright crystal sea
Some beautiful day I'll meet them in heaven
Where no one will be a stranger to me

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again

CHORUS:
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"

My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.
Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"


Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?

Woodie Guthrie

Ah, Try. Your song reminded me of "I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger". A little too heavy for me right now, listeners.

Hey, let's answer our edgar's song with the snow man. <smile>


Written by Jimmie Rodgers - Clayton McMichen

Recorded by Hank Snow



When it's peach picking time in Georgia apple picking time in Tennessee

Cotton picking time in Mississippi everybody picks on me

When it's roundup time in Texas the cowboys make whoopee

And way down in old Alabama it's gal picking time for me

There's a bluegrass down in Kentucky Virginia's where they do the swing

Carolina now I'm a coming to you come and just to spend the spring

Arkansas I hear you calling I know I'll see you soon

That's where we'll do some picking beneath the Ozark moon

When the picker is picking cotton that's the time I pick a wedding ring

We'll go to the town to pick a little gown for the wedding in the spring

Hope the preacher knows his business I know he can't fool me

When it's peach picking time in Georgia it's gal picking time for me

All I Ever Need Is You

As recorded by Sonny & Cher


Sometimes when I'm down and all alone
Just like a child without a home
The love you give me keeps me hangin' on, honey
All I ever need is you.

You're my first love, you're my last
You're my future, you're my past
And loving you is all I ask, honey
All I ever need is you.

Without love I'd never find a way,
Through the ups and downs of every day,
And I won't sleep at night until you say, honey
All I ever need is you.

Winters come, then they go
And we watch the melting snow
Sure as summer follows spring
All the things you do give me a reason
To build me world around you.

Some men follow rainbows I am told,
Some men search for silver, some for gold
But I have found my treasure in your soul, honey
All I ever need is you.

Without love I'd never find the way,
Through the ups and downs of every day
And I won't sleep at night until you say, honey
All I ever need is you.

Well, Try. I am delighted that you played that song by S and C. I just found out that is was done by Ray Charles.

And an answer, for our man who could be anywhere:<smile>

I bless the day I found you
I want to stay around you
And so I beg you
Let it be me

Don't take this heaven from one
If you must cling to someone
Now and forever
Let it be me

Each time we meet love
I find complete love
Without your sweet love
What would life be

So never leave me lonely
Tell me you love me only
And that you'll always
Let it be me

Take a look at this, folks:

http://www.secondhandsongs.com/song/7809.html

Thank you, Miss Letty!
Little Jane can use a good song, my poor baby is in bed with tonsillitis and high fever.

Well, honey, you are welcome, but that concerns me about your baby girl.

However, the tonsils are there for a reason. They catch bugs and stuff. Let us know about her progress.

Until then, Jane. Another song for your ailing child:

Performed by: Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews)
Written by: Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman




In ev'ry job that must be done
There is an element of fun
you find the fun and snap!
The job's a game

Nad ev'ry task you undertake
Becomes a piece of cake
A lark! Aspree!
It's very clear to me

That a...
Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way

A robin feathering his nest
Has very little time to rest
While gathering his
Bits of twine and twig

Though quite intent in his pursuit
He has a merry tune to toot
He knows a song
Will move the job along

For a...
Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way

Thank you, Miss Letty, that's one of her favorite songs, along with
Supercalifragilistexpialogocious

Good morning on this holiday weekend, have a great one.



Lyrics: Will Jennings
Once Upon A Time With Me

Come away, come away
And your heart will understand
Yesterday flies away
But tomorrow's in your hand
Come away, come away
There's a place that it can be
That you can be like once upon a time
With me

Once upon a time, we were flying
Once upon a time, we were free
Life once let us go as far as we could go
Always remember once upon a time with me

Come away, come away
And your heart will understand
Yesterday flies away
But tomorrow's in your hand
Come away, come away
There's a place that it can be
That you can be like once upon a time
With me

Once against the odds, we were winners
We were all we dreamed we could be
You touch night and day and made them go our way
Once upon a time with me

When we lived our lives like a story
And the story ends, what will be?
Where this life will go, I don't pretend to know
Please don't forget that once upon a time with me


When one story ends
There's another
It's all up to us
Don't you see?
You say, "Let's begin."
And I say once again

And you'll find it's not once upon a time
But here and now, and you and me

Come away, come away
And your heart will understand
Yesterday flies away
But tomorrow's in your hand
Come away, come away
There's a place that it can be
That you can be like once upon a time
With me

Ooh, with me

Wild Bill Hickok
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


James Butler Hickock (1837-1876)

James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 - August 2, 1876), better known as Wild Bill Hickok, was a legendary figure in the American Wild West.

Hickok was born in Troy Grove, Illinois on May 27, 1837. He left his father's farm in 1855 to be a stage coach driver on the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. His gunfighting skills led to his nickname. In 1857, he claimed a 160 acre (exactly 1/4 mi²=about 0.65 km²) tract of land in Johnson County, Kansas (in what is now the city of Lenexa) where he became the first constable of Monticello Township, Kansas [1].

In 1861, he became a town constable in Nebraska. He became well-known for single-handedly capturing the McCanles gang at Rock Creek Station through the use of force. On several other occasions, Hickok confronted and killed several men while fighting alone. His famous statement to Phil Coe, who supposedly stated he could "kill a crow on the wing," (flying) is one of the Old West's most famous sayings, and showed that Hickok was certainly a cool customer in a fight. He answered Coe by sneering, "Did the crow have a pistol? Was he shooting back? I will be." Hickok later killed Coe.[1] Whether or not Coe had actually made the crow brag, and Hickok answered as reported, it certainly personified the reputation Wild Bill accrued.

On July 21, 1865, in the town square of Springfield, Missouri, Hickok killed Davis K. Tutt, Jr. during an incident which is considered by some historians to have been the first "Wild West" gunfight. The incident was precipitated by a dispute over a gambling debt incurred at a local saloon.

After the American Civil War, Hickok became an Army scout and a professional gambler, and served as a United States Marshal. In 1867, his fame increased from an interview by Henry Morton Stanley. Hickok's killing of Whistler the Peacemaker with a long-range rifle shot had influence in preventing the Sioux from uniting to resist the settler incursions into the Black Hills. While Sherriff/City Marshal of Hays, Kansas on July 17, 1870, he was involved in a gunfight with soldiers of the 7th US Cavalry wounding one and mortally wounding another. In 1871, Hickok became marshal of Abilene, Kansas. His encounter there with John Wesley Hardin resulted in the latter fleeing the town after Wild Bill managed to disarm him. On Oct 5, 1871 he accidentally shot and killed Abilene Special Deputy Marshall Mike Williams [2]. In 1873-1874, Hickok joined Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro in a touring stage play titled Scouts of the Plains, the forerunner to Cody's Wild West shows. There, he befriended "Calamity" Jane Cannary-Burke, who was later to claim a romantic relationship which appears dubious as Hickok was newly married and greatly enamored of his wife. He was fired from the show due to drunkenness. The two were to meet again in Charlie Utter's 1876 wagon train from Colorado to Deadwood, South Dakota, where the three of them remained close friends.

It is difficult to separate the truth from fiction about Hickok, the first "dime novel" hero of the western era. Hickok himself told the writers with great seriousness that he had killed over 100 men. While this number is doubtful, there is no doubt that Hickok was a fearless and deadly fighting man, equally at home with a rifle, revolver, or knife.

Hickok invented the concept of "posting" men out of town. He would put a list on what was called the "dead man's tree" (men had been lynched on it) while constable of Monticello Township. If they were not gone by sundown of that day, Hickok proclaimed he would shoot them on sight the following day. Few stayed around to find out if he was serious.

On August 2, 1876, while playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's "Saloon No. 10" in Deadwood (then part of the Dakota Territory but on Indian land), Hickok could not find an empty seat in the corner, where he always sat in order to protect himself against sneak attacks from behind, and instead sat with his back to the door; unfortunately, his previous caution proved wise, as he was shot in the back of the head with a double-action .45 caliber revolver by Jack McCall. The motive for the killing is still debated. (McCall may have been paid for the deed, it may have just been the result of a recent dispute, or McCall may, in a drunken rage, have become enraged over what he perceived as a condescending offer from Hickok to let him have enough money for breakfast after he had lost all his money playing poker the previous day.) McCall claimed at the resulting two-hour trial by a motley group of assembled miners and businessmen that he was avenging Hickok's earlier slaying of his brother and was acquitted, resulting in the Black Hills Pioneer editorializing:

"Should it ever be our misfortune to kill a man ... we would simply ask that our trial may take place in some of the mining camps of these hills."
McCall was subsequently rearrested after bragging about his deed, and a new trial was held. The authorities did not consider this to be double jeopardy because Deadwood at the time was an illegal city due to several laws that made it illegal to settle on Indian land, although many people did anyway. The new trial was held in American territory, in Yankton, South Dakota. Hickok's brother, Lorenzo Butler Hickok, traveled from Illinois to attend the retrial. This time McCall was found guilty and hanged. After his execution it was determined that McCall had never even had a brother. The saloon proprietor claimed that, at the time of his death, Hickok held a pair of aces and a pair of eights, with all cards black, and this has since been called a "dead man's hand".

Utter claimed the body, and placed a notice in the local newspaper, the Black Hills Pioneer, which read:

"Died in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876, from the effects of a pistol shot, J. B. Hickok (Wild Bill) formerly of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Funeral services will be held at Charlie Utter's Camp, on Thursday afternoon, August 3, 1876, at 3 o'clock, P. M. All are respectfully invited to attend."
Almost the entire town attended the funeral, and Utter had Hickok buried with a wooden grave marker reading:

"Wild Bill, J. B. Hickok killed by the assassin Jack McCall in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2d, 1876. Pard, we will meet again in the happy hunting ground to part no more. Good bye, Colorado Charlie, C. H. Utter."
At the urging of Calamity Jane, Utter in 1879 had Hickok reinterred in a ten foot square plot at the Mount Moriah Cemetery, surrounded by a cast-iron fence with an American flag flying nearby. A monument has since been built there. In accordance with her dying wish, Calamity Jane was buried next to him.

Shortly before Hickok's death, he wrote a letter to his new wife, which in retrospect seems eerily prescient:

"Agnes Darling, if such should be we never meet again, while firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife - Agnes - and with wishes even for my enemies I will make the plunge and try to swim to the other shore".

A week before Hickok's death he wrote a letter to his wife, Agnes, containing: "My dearly beloved if I am to die today and never see the sweet face of you I want you to know that I am no great man and am lucky to have such a woman as you."


Trivia

The last days of Hickok's life are a subject of the Deadwood TV series, in which he is portrayed by Keith Carradine. He also appeared as a character in the Dustin Hoffman movie Little Big Man. He also was a model for Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit", and appears as himself in Richard Matheson's novel The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickock.
Hickok was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.
Hickok's supposed death chair is now in a glass case above the saloon entrance, though the saloon itself was moved after the original 10 burned down; the original site is down the street to the north, about a block away.

Hickok was a Roman Catholic.

Hickok is portrayed by Jeff Bridges in the 1995 movie "Wild Bill."

Dashiell Hammett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Samuel Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 - January 10, 1961) was an American author of "hard-boiled" detective novels and short stories. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest, The Dain Curse).

Early life

Hammett was born in St. Mary's County in Southern Maryland on the Western Shore of Maryland. His parents were Richard Thomas and Annie Bond Dashiell (the name being an Americanization of the French De Chiel). "Dash" left school when he was 13 years old and held several jobs before working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. He served as an operative for the Pinkerton Agency from 1915 to 1921, with time off to serve stateside in the Motor Ambulance Corps. However, the agency's role in union strike-breaking eventually disillusioned him. In Butte, Montana, Frank Little, a leading organizer for the radical Industrial Workers of the World union, was viciously murdered. Pinkerton agents were thought to be involved, although the crime was never solved.

During World War I, Hammett enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the Motor Ambulance Corps. However he became ill with the Spanish flu and later contracted tuberculosis. He spent the war as a patient in a hospital in America.

After the war, he turned to drinking, advertising, and eventually, writing. His work at the detective agency provided him the inspiration for his writings.

Later years

In 1931, Hammett embarked on a thirty-year affair with playwright Lillian Hellman. He wrote his final novel in 1934, and devoted much of the rest of his life to left-wing activism. He was a strong anti-fascist throughout the 1930s and in 1937 he joined the American Communist Party.

In 1942, Hammett enlisted in the United States Army after the United States entered World War II. Though he was a disabled veteran of WWI, and a victim of tuberculosis, he pulled strings in order to be admitted into service. He spent most of WWII as a sergeant in the Army in the Aleutian Islands, where he edited an Army newspaper.

After World War II, Hammett joined the New York Civil Rights Congress, a leftist organization that was considered by some to be a communist front. When four communists related to the organization were arrested, Hammett raised money for their bail bond. When the accused fled, he was subpoenaed about their whereabouts, and in 1951, he was imprisoned for 6 months for contempt of court after refusing to provide information to the court.

During the 1950s he was investigated by the Congress of the United States (see McCarthyism). Although he testified to his own activities, he refused to divulge the identities of American communists, and was blacklisted.

Hammett died in Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. As a veteran of two World Wars, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1975, writer Joe Gores published Hammett, a novel in which a fictional version of the writer was sought out by an old Pinkerton associate to help him solve a case that drags him through the seamy underbelly of 1936 San Francisco. In 1982, a film version directed by Wim Wenders was released.

Vincent Price
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Vincent Price on Broadway as Mr. Manningham in Angel Street, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1942. His long run in the play kept him off screen for three years. The play was filmed twice as Gaslight, but Price did not star in either version.Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (May 27, 1911-October 25, 1993) was an American film actor. He is best remembered for his roles in a series of low-budget horror films where his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude were well used. In such films, his tall physique and polished urbane manner made him something of an American counterpart to the older Boris Karloff.


Early life and career

He was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Vincent Leonard Price and Marguerite Willcox. His father was president of the National Candy Company. Vincent Jr. was educated at Yale in art history and fine art. He was a member of Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity and the Courtauld Institute, London. He became interested in theater in the 1930s, appearing professionally on stage from 1935.

He made his film debut in 1938 with Service de Luxe and established himself as a competent player, notably in Laura (1944), directed by Otto Preminger. He acted as Joseph Smith, Jr. in the movie Brigham Young (1940).

In the 1950s he moved into horror films, enjoying the role in the successful curiosity House of Wax (1953), the first 3-D film to land in the year's top ten at the North American box office, and then the classic monster movie The Fly (1958).

The 6'4" actor also starred in the original House on Haunted Hill (1959) as the eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. (Geoffrey Rush, playing the same character in the 1999 remake, not only was made to resemble Price, but also renamed after him.)

1960s

In the 1960s, he had a number of low-budget successes with Roger Corman and AIP including the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and The Tomb of Ligeia (1965).

These were followed by numerous other roles throughout the 1960s where he played characters in horror films that were often closely modelled on the Corman Poe films. He has also appeared in The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Theatre of Blood (1973), where he created a series of campy tongue-in-cheek villains. Price also recorded dramatic readings of Poe's short stories and poems, which were collected together with readings by Basil Rathbone.

He often spoke of his joy at playing "Egghead" on the popular Batman television series. Another of his co-stars, Yvonne Craig (Batgirl), often said Price was her favorite co-star.

Vincent, after a take was printed, started throwing eggs at Adam West and Burt Ward and when asked to stop replied, "With a full artillery? Not a chance!", causing an eggfight on the soundstage.

Later career

He greatly reduced his film work from around 1975, as horror itself suffered a slump, and increased his narrative and voice work. For example, Price's voiceover is heard on Alice Cooper's first solo album Welcome to My Nightmare; in Michael Jackson's music video, Thriller; and, in one of his last major and one of his favourite feature film roles, as the voice of Professor Ratigan in Walt Disney Pictures' The Great Mouse Detective. He also starred for a year in the early 1970s in a syndicated daily radio program, Tales of the Unexplained. He also made a guest appearance in a well remembered 1972 episode of The Brady Bunch, in which he played a deranged archeologist.

In the summer of 1977, he began performing as Oscar Wilde, in the one man stage play Diversions and Delights. Written by John Gay and directed by Joe Hardy, the play is set in a Parisian theatre, on a night about one year before Wilde's death. In an attempt to earn some much-needed money, he speaks to the audience about his life, his works and, in the second act, about his love for Bosie, Lord Alfred Douglas, which led to his downfall.

The original tour of the play was a success in every city that it played, except for New York City. In the summer of 1979 Price performed it at the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colorado on the same stage that Wilde had spoken to the miners about art some 96 years before. Price would eventually perform the play worldwide and many, including his daughter Victoria, considered it the best acting that he ever did.

From 1981 to 1989, he hosted the PBS television series Mystery!. His last significant film work was as the inventor in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990).

In his later years, Price spoke out against modern horror films that glorified violence, pointing out that his films were harmless spoofs by comparison.

Family

The blue-eyed Price was married three times. Price fathered a son named Vincent, Jr. with his first wife, a former actress named Edith. Price and his second wife Mary donated hundreds of works of art and a large amount of money to East Los Angeles College in the early 1960s, in order to endow the Vincent and Mary Price Gallery there. Their daughter Victoria was born in 1962.

Price's last marriage was to the Australian actress Coral Browne who appeared with him (as one of his victims) in Theatre Of Blood (1973). People have said theirs was one of Hollywood's great love stories; he converted to Catholicism for her, and she became a US citizen for him. According to his daughter, Price became disillusioned with the faith after her 1991 death, from which friends say he never recovered. He followed her to the grave two years later.

Trivia

Price was also a noted gourmet cook and art collector. From 1962 to 1971, Sears, Roebuck offered the Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art, selling about 50,000 pieces of fine art to the general public. Price selected and commissioned works for the collection, including works by Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dalí (see [1]).

When Disneyland Paris was in development, Price was to play the voice role of the Phantom in Phantom Manor, a variation on the Haunted Mansion theme. However, shortly after the park opened in 1992, the narration was removed and replaced by a French narration done by Gerard Chevalier though Price's menacing laughter still remains in use.

Price was an Honorary Board Member and strong supporter of the Witch's Dungeon Movie Museum located in Bristol, Connecticut until his death. The museum features detailed life-size wax replicas of characters from some of Price's films, including The Fly, The Abominable Dr. Phibes and The Masque of the Red Death (see [2]).

Death

Vincent Price was a lifelong smoker. He had long suffered from emphysema and Parkinson's disease, which had forced his role in Edward Scissorhands to be much smaller than intended.

His illness presumably also contributed to his retirement from Mystery, as his condition was becoming noticeable on-screen. He died of lung cancer at age 82, on October 25, 1993. The next night, his biography, Conversations With Vincent, directed by and featuring Tim Burton, was first aired on the Arts and Entertainment Network. The broadcast began with a note by A&E dedicating the broadcast to Vincent Price's memory.

Legacy

A black box theatre at Price's alma mater, St. Louis Country Day School, is named after him.

Vincent Twice Vincent Twice was a Price lookalike character on Sesame Street.

In 1989, Vincent Price was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

In 1999, a frank and detailed biography of Vincent Price, written by his daughter Victoria Price, was published by St Martin's Griffin Press.

Starting in 2005, featured cast member Bill Hader of the US variety show Saturday Night Live has played Price on the show.

Christopher Lee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Christopher Lee portrays Count Dooku in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the ClonesChristopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE (born May 27, 1922 in Belgravia, London) is a legendary and prolific English actor known for his versatility, his professional longevity, and his distinctive basso delivery.

Lee is best known for his portrayals of villains; he became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films. Other notable roles include Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man and Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun. Lee is now over eighty years old, and still appearing in films such as The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.[1]

Early Life

Lee was born in London in 1922, the son of Geoffrey Trollope Lee, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, and the Marchesina Estelle Marie Carandini di Sarzano, whose grandfather had been an Italian political refugee who had sought refuge in Australia. Lee's mother was a famous Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery, as well as Oswald Birley, Olive Snell and sculpted by Clare Sheridan, a cousin of Winston Churchill. His parents separated when he was very young and his mother took Christopher and his sister Xandra to Switzerland, where Christopher was enrolled in Miss Fisher's Academy in Wengen and he played his first villainous role as Rumpelstiltskin. The family returned to London where Christopher attended Wagner's private school. His mother then married Harcourt 'Ingle' Rose, a banker and uncle of the James Bond author Ian Fleming. Lee then attended Wellington College, where he won scholarships in classics. He volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939 - though, as Lee admits in his autobiography, he and his fellow British volunteers were in Finland for a fortnight and kept well away from the Russian forces the whole time. He went on to serve in the Royal Air Force and intelligence during World War II. He trained in South Africa as a pilot but was forced to drop out due to eye problems. He eventually ended up in North Africa as Cipher Officer for No. 260 Squadron RAF and was with them through Sicily and Italy. Additionally, he has mentioned serving in Special Operations Executive in interviews, and claims to know the sound a man makes when you stab him in the back and puncture his lung. Lee retired from the RAF after the end of the War in the rank of Flight Lieutenant.


Career as an Actor

Christopher Lee in his signature role, as Dracula (1958)In 1946, Lee gained a seven-year contract with Rank Organisation after discussing his interest in acting with his mother's second cousin Nicolò Carandini, the Italian Ambassador. Carandini related to Lee that performance was in his blood as his great grandmother Marie Carandini had been a successful opera singer in Australia, a fact of which Lee was unaware. He made his film debut in Terence Young's Gothic romance, Corridor of Mirrors, in 1948. Throughout the next decade, Lee made nearly thirty films, playing mostly stock action characters. His first film for Hammer, made in 1956 with his close friend Peter Cushing, was The Curse of Frankenstein, in which he played "The Creature". That led to his first appearance as the infamous Transylvanian count in the 1958 film Dracula (known as Horror of Dracula in the U.S.) Lee would become indelibly associated with the role and with the horror genre, making another six films as Dracula, five of them for Hammer, as well as many other horror films.

Lee has played roles in over 220 films since 1948. He has had many notable television roles, including that of Flay in the BBC television miniseries Gormenghast that was based on Mervyn Peake's novels and Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński in the 2005 CBS film, John Paul the Second.


Honors

In 2001, Christopher Lee was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.[2]

Lee was named 2005's 'most marketable star in the world' in a USA Today newspaper poll, after three of the films he appeared in grossed $640m.[3]


Trivia

Lee is a direct lineal descendent of Charlemagne through his mother's side.[citation needed]
The Carandini family was given the right to bear the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Cinemareview cites: "Cardinal Consalvi was Papal Secretary of State at the time of Napoleon and is buried at the Pantheon in Rome next to the painter Raphael. His painting, by Lawrence hangs in Windsor Castle."[1]
Lee is a step-cousin of the late Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels. Fleming offered him the role of the title character in the first official Bond film Dr. No, and Lee enthusiastically accepted, but the producers had already chosen Joseph Wiseman for the part. In 1974, Lee finally got to play a James Bond villain, when he was cast as the deadly assassin Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun. Lee would reprise the latter role some thirty years later when he provided the voice of Scaramanga in the video game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.[4]
Lee appeared on the cover of the Wings album Band on the Run along with other people, including chat show host Michael Parkinson, movie actor James Coburn, world boxing champion John Conteh and broadcaster Clement Freud.[citation needed]

Lee has narrated and sung for the Danish musical group "The Tolkien Ensemble", taking the role of Treebeard, King Theoden and others in the readings or singings of their respective poems or songs.[citation needed]
Lee narrated the Dark Secret EP by Italian power metal band, Rhapsody, appearing in the storyline as the wizard king Iras Algor. We can hear Lee's voice in the newest Rhapsody's album, Symphony of Enchanted Lands II: The Dark Secret. He also sings a duet with Fabio Lione on Rhapsody's single, The Magic of the Wizard's Dream.[citation needed]
Lee was a natural choice for the Lord of the Rings movies, where he plays the role of Saruman (although he is known to have vied for the role of Gandalf, which was given to Ian McKellen). Lee had known Tolkien, and makes a habit of reading the novels at least once a year; his knowledge of the trilogy was so broad that he was frequently consulted on-set as a Tolkien advisor.[citation needed]

Lee's great-grandparents formed Australia's first opera company, performing before miners in towns in the outback.[5]

Lee sings on the soundtrack, performing Paul Giovanni's psych folk composition, The Tinker of Rye.[citation needed]

He is fluent in Italian and German and moderately proficient in French.[1

He was the original voice of Thor in the German dubs in the Danish 1986 animated movie Valhalla, and of King Haggard in the 1982 animated adaption of The Last Unicorn.[6][7]

Lee has been married to the Danish model Birgit Kroencke since 1961. They have a daughter named Christina (born 23 November 1963).[5]
He is the uncle of the British actress Harriet Walter.[1]