WA2K Radio is now on the air

and how could I have missed that lovely Australian butterfly. <smile>


Here is a picture of our newest celeb:




We can see why Ellinas did more looking than listening.

Charles Coburn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles Douville Coburn (June 19, 1877 - August 30, 1961) was an American film and theater actor.

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Coburn was a theater manager by the age of 17. He later moved on to acting and made his debut on Broadway in 1901. Coburn formed an acting company with his wife in 1906, and in addition to managing the company, the couple performed frequently on Broadway. After his wife's death in 1937, Coburn relocated to Los Angeles, California and began acting in films.

He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The More the Merrier in 1943. He was also nominated for his roles in The Devil and Miss Jones in 1941 and The Green Years in 1946.

In the 1940s, Coburn served as vice-president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideas, a right-wing group opposed to the presence of Communists in Hollywood. His virulent leadership of the blacklist of anyone with any connection to Fascism, supported by such Academy-Award nominees as Adolph Menjou and Ginger Rogers, led to a myriad of talented actors, writers and directors driven from Hollywood and deprived of their livelihood during the witchhunt.

His other film credits include Of Human Hearts (1938), The Lady Eve (1941), Kings Row (1942), The Constant Nymph (1943), Heaven Can Wait (1943), Wilson (1944), Impact (1949), The Paradine Case (1947) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

He died from a heart attack in New York, New York.

Charles Coburn has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to motion pictures at 6240 Hollywood Boulevard.

He is also the grandfather of James Coburn (Agent Flint in Our man Flint and In like Flint, in the 60s)

Guy Lombardo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo (June 19, 1902 - November 5, 1977) was a Canadian bandleader and violinist. With his three brothers Carmen, Lebert and Victor and other musicians from his hometown of London, Ontario, he formed the big band The Royal Canadians in 1924, famous for playing what is considered "The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven."

The band played at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City from 1929 to 1959, and their New Year's Eve broadcasts (which continued until 1976 at the Waldorf Astoria) were a major part of New Year's celebrations across North America. In 1938, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. They were noted for playing the traditional song Auld Lang Syne as part of the celebrations. Their recording of the song still plays as the first song of the new year in Times Square.

The Lombardos are to believed to have sold more than 300 million phonograph albums during their lifetimes, a considerable feat given that many homes had no record players in the 1920s and 1930s.

Hydroplane racer

Guy Lombardo was also an important figure in hydroplane racing, winning the Gold Cup in 1946 and the Ford Memorial competition in 1948. A museum in London is dedicated to his musical and hydroplane racing achievements. The Guy Lombardo Museum is located near Wonderland Gardens, a venue closely associated with Lombardo and the Royal Canadians. Nearby there is also a bridge named after him, as well as Lombardo Avenue in north London near the University of Western Ontario.

In his later years, Lombardo lived in Freeport, Long Island, NY where he kept his boat "Tempo IV." He also invested in a nearby seafood restaurant (or clam shack) originally called Liota's East Point House. It was soon Guy Lombardo's East Point House.

The home Guy Lombardo was born in still stands at 202 Simcoe Street in London, Ontario.

Mildred Natwick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Mildred Natwick (June 19, 1905 - October 25, 1994) was an American stage and film actress.

Career

A native of Baltimore, Maryland, after graduating from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in theater arts, Mildred Natwick toured with a number of stage productions before her first Broadway production, Carrie Nation.

Throughout the 1930s she starred in a number of plays, frequently collaborating with friend and actor-director-playwright Joshua Logan. Natwick made her film debut in John Ford's The Long Voyage Home as a cockney prostitute, but didn't pursue a Hollywood career in earnest until the mid-1940s. Even after establishing her film career, Natwick could still frequently be seen in stage productions. She was twice nominated for Tony Awards: in 1957 for The Waltz of the Toreadors, and, in 1972 for the musical, 70 Girls 70.

Natwick made her name in small, but memorable roles in several of John Ford classics including Three Godfathers (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1948), and The Quiet Man (1952), as the sheltered widow Mrs. Tillane. The character actress was often given one-scene parts or shallow roles which she transcended with her personality and talent, such as her role as a birth control advocate in the comedy Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), the "well-preserved woman" in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry, and a sorceress in The Court Jester.

After leaving film in favor of stage and television in the mid-1950s, she returned with Barefoot in the Park as Jane Fonda's mother. The role earned Natwick her first and only Academy Award nomination. For much of the following decade, Natwick appeared exclusively in television, winning an Emmy Award for her role in the limited series The Snoop Sisters, a mystery which pared her with fellow film veteran Helen Hayes. Her final role came with 1988's Dangerous Liaisons. Natwick died of cancer on October 25, 1994 in New York City, aged 89.

Mildred was the first cousin of Myron 'Grim' Natwick, the creator of Betty Boop for the Fliescher Studios, and the primary animator of Snow White for Walt Disney.

Louis Jourdan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Louis Jourdan (born June 19, 1919) is a French actor, known chiefly for his suave manner and good looks.


Born Louis Gendre in Marseille, France, he was educated in France, Turkey and England and trained as an actor at the École Dramatique. He made his film debut in 1939. Following the German occupation of France during World War II, he continued to make films but after refusing to participate in Nazi propaganda films, he joined the French Resistance. After the 1944 liberation of France by the Allies, Louis Jourdan married Berthe Frederique with whom he had a son.

In 1947, Jourdan accepted an offer from a Hollywood studio to appear in The Paradine Case, an Alfred Hitchcock drama starring Gregory Peck. There, he became friends with several stars who shared his love of the game of croquet. After a number of American films, his most notable work was in the 1954 light-hearted comedy-romance, Three Coins in the Fountain following which he made his Broadway debut in the lead role in the Billy Rose drama, The Immoralist. He returned to Broadway for a short run in 1955 and that year made his U.S. television debut as Inspector Beaumont in the series "Paris Precinct".





During the 1950s, Louis Jourdan made several international films including playing the male lead in La Mariée est trop belle opposite Brigitte Bardot. However, he is best remembered as the romantic lead opposite Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier in the 1958 film version of the Colette novel, Gigi. The film earned nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In later years, Jourdan appeared in a number of films, playing the part of the villain, including 1977's Count Dracula and 1978's Murder Under Glass Columbo episode. In the 1983 James Bond film, Octopussy, he was cast as "Kamal Khan," a Bond villain. In 1984 played the role of Pierre de Coubertin in a TV Series about the 1896 Summer Olympics : "The First Olympics Athens 1896".

Tragedy struck when his son died of a drug overdose in 1981. Louis Henry Jourdan was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Louis Jourdan has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6153 and 6445 Hollywood Blvd. He is retired and living in the south of France.

Gena Rowlands
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gena Rowlands (born June 19, 1930) is an American actress.

She was born Virginia Cathryn Rowlands in Cambria, Wisconsin, she attended the University of Wisconsin. Her father, Edwin Myrwyn Rowlands, was a state Assemblyman and her mother, Mary Allen Neal, was a housewife.

Rowlands appeared in Broadway in the late 1950s, and made her film debut in The High Cost of Loving in 1958. She starred in several anthology television series, including Robert Montgomery Presents, Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One, among many others. In 1961 she starred in the well-received television series 87th Precinct, and in 1964 in Peyton Place.

Teaming with her husband, writer and director John Cassavetes, Rowlands starred in many productions, including Staccato, A Child Is Waiting, Faces, Gloria (nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress), Love Streams, Minnie and Moskowitz, She's So Lovely, and A Woman Under the Influence (Academy Award nomination). She starred in The Neon Bible. In 1985, Rowlands played the mother in the critically acclaimed made-for-TV movie An Early Frost. In recent years, she has appeared in Paulie and in Mira Nair's HBO movie, Hysterical Blindness for which she won her third Emmy.

She was recently seen in The Notebook, which was directed by her son, Nick Cassavetes, and co-starred James Garner, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. In 2004 she won her first Daytime Emmy for her role as Mrs. Evelyn Ritchie in The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie. To name a few, Ms. Rowlands has been nominated for: two Academy Awards; six Emmy nominations, and one Daytime Emmy; eight Golden Globes; three Satellite Awards; and one SAG Award. Some of her notable wins include: a Silver Berlin Bear; three Emmy Awards and one Daytime Emmy; two Golden Globes; two National Board of Review Awards; two Satellite Awards; and one Prize San Sebastián.

In 2005, she appeared opposite Kate Hudson, Peter Sarsgaard, and John Hurt in the gothic thriller The Skeleton Key.

Pier Angeli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pier Angeli (born Anna Maria Pierangeli) (June 19, 1932 - September 10, 1971) was an Italian-born actress who made her debut in "Domani é troppo tardi" (1950).

Born in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, during the 1950s she was under contract to MGM and was praised for her acting in the movie Somebody Up There Likes Me.

During the 1960s and until 1970 the actress returned to live and work in Europe.

Well known for her romance with James Dean, the actress married twice. Her first marriage was to Vic Damone and the second to Italian composer Armando Trovajoli. During her marriage to singer/actor Damone (1954-1959 divorce), the actress asked to be released from her contract. She had one son by each union.

Her twin sister is actress Marisa Pavan.

On September 10, 1971 she committed suicide by taking an overdose of barbiturates in Beverly Hills, California.

She is interred in the Cimetière des Bulvis, in Rueil-Malmaison, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

Marisa Pavan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marisa Pavan (born Marisa Pierangeli on June 19, 1932) is an Italian-born actress who first became famous as the twin sister to movie star Pier Angeli (Anna Maria Pierangeli) before making movie stardom on her own. Her breakthrough came in the film The Rose Tattoo as Anna Magnani's daughter; her role was first signed to her twin, who at the time was unable to play the part. When Magnani won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in the movie version of The Rose Tattoo, Pavan accepted on her behalf as Magnani was not present at the awards ceremony.

Afterwards, Marisa Pavan co-starred in films such as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and The Midnight Story.

She married, divorced, and later remarried the French Jewish actor Jean-Pierre Aumont between 1956 until his death in 2001; they had two sons.

Kathleen Turner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Turner as private eye V.I. WarshawskiKathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an American actress.

Early life

Born Mary Kathleen Turner in Springfield, Missouri, Turner's parents were career diplomats, and she lived in four foreign countries--Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and England while growing up. Turner has two brothers and a sister. She was a gymnast as a teenager. While attending high school in London, she also took classes at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Her father, Allen Richard Turner, grew up in China and was a foreign services diplomat who was imprisoned by the Japanese for four years during World War II. When her father died of a coronary thrombosis in 1972, the family moved back to the United States.

Career

She attended Missouri State University at Springfield for two years, then gained her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 1977. In 1978, the 5'10" husky voiced Turner was hired as the second Nola Turner on NBC daytime soap The Doctors, but was fired the next year because the producers felt she was "not hot enough".

Turner had the last laugh as she became a movie star a few years later in Body Heat, which many consider one of the sexiest films (with Turner giving one of the sexiest performances) in the history of cinema. Turner remained a film star up to the early 1990s, but has since rarely appeared in major productions.

During her heyday, she rose to fame as the leading-lady star of Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas, Prizzi's Honor with Jack Nicholson, Peggy Sue Got Married with Nicolas Cage, and The War of the Roses with Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. Her career began to slide with her appearances in increasingly low-budget and low-profile films.

Turner is noteworthy for doing her own stunts in her films, and she broke her nose in V.I. Warshawski. (She revisited the role of V.I. Warshawski on BBC Radio 4 in the early 1990s in serialised dramatisations of several of Sara Paretsky's books).

She also had some very scary moments as the eponymous Serial Mom.

In addition to the movies and radio work listed above, she has also appeared as a guest on Friends (as the transvestite father of Chandler Bing), King of the Hill (voice), The Simpsons (voice of Malibu Stacy creator on the episode "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy), Saturday Night Live, which she hosted twice, and as a defense attorney on Dick Wolf'sLaw & Order franchise.

Turner spoke the voice (uncredited) of sexy Jessica Rabbit in the toon-noir Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in 1988.

In 2000 Turner starred as Mrs. Robinson in the London revival of The Graduate.

Because of her deep voice, she was often compared to a young Lauren Bacall. When the two met, Turner reportedly introduced herself to Bacall by saying "Hi, I'm the young you."

Turner was immortalized in the 1980s song "The Kiss of Kathleen Turner" by Austrian techno-pop singer Falco. She received a lifetime achievement award from the Savannah College of Art and Design at the Savannah Film Festival in October 2004.

Awards

She was nominated for an Oscar for best actress in 1987 for her role in Peggy Sue Got Married. She received two Golden Globe awards, both for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, for Romancing the Stone (1984) and Prizzi's Honor (1985) and she won the L.A. Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress for Ken Russell's Crimes of Passion (1984).

Personal life

Turner lived with agent David Guc from 1977-1982 and is currently married to New York real-estate mogul, Jay Weiss (they married in 1984).

She and Weiss have a daughter, Rachel Ann Weiss, born October 14, 1987.

Turner was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 1992. On December 3, 1999, Turner checked herself into Marworth in Waverly, Pennsylvania for alcohol abuse.

The ravages of both illnesses have taken their toll on this once classical beauty, but she turned them to her at least temporary advantage with an incredible performance as Martha, the middle-aged, slatternly, blowsy anti-heroine of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on Broadway in 2005, opposite Bill Irwin, evoking memories of Elizabeth Taylor's Oscar-winning movie performance from 1966.

Political Involvement

Kathleen Turner serves on the board of People for the American Way.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT!

1. You spend the first two years of their life
teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend
the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up.

2. Grandchildren are God's reward
for not killing your own children.

3. Mothers of teens now know why
some animals eat their young.

4. Children seldom misquote you. In fact,
they usually repeat word for word
what you shouldn't have said.

5. The main purpose of holding children's parties
is to remind yourself that there are children
more awful than your own.

6. We childproofed our homes,
but they are still getting in.

=========================
ADVICE FOR THE DAY:

Be nice to your kids.
They will choose your
nursing home one day.

=========================
AND FINALLY:

IF YOU ! HAVE A LOT OF TENSION
AND YOU GET A HEADACHE,
DO WHAT IT SAYS
ON THE ASPIRIN BOTTLE:

"TAKE TWO ASPIRIN"
AND "KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN"!!!!!

OK, if I have time I am going to translate songs I like and post them .

Well, folks, our bio man from Boston, and our favorite hawk, has lots of celeb background info for us today. Thanks, buddy, and when our Raggedy appears with pictures, we all will make further comments. Loved the observations about kids, dear. Somewhere around here I still have a hat that my kids gave me that says: Get revenge; live long enough to be a burden on your children.

Ellinas, we are indeed looking forward to your music, Greece.

Well, listeners, I have stuff to do so I will be back later.

This is cyber space, WA2K radio.

OK, here is the translation of the first song came in my mind. More to follow soon.

This song was composed just a few years ago, but it is referring at an older period, the situation after the Greek-Turkish war of 1922 and the first massive getaway of the Greeks from Ionia in Asia Minor by many Greeks after 3000 years.

Well it is a difficult sad song, you can't completely understand parts of them just with a read. As it looks like the "storyteller" is a lover of an Ionian girl.

The English translation (by me ) follows. Greek lyrics are here: http://www.kithara.vu/ss.php?id=MTA3NjA5NDM5

Stella from Smyrna

Lyrics: Georgios Moukides
Singer: Notis Sfakianakis

You wake up again early in the morning, with tears in your eyes,
You tell me you saw the same dream yesterday.
Listen the sound of the arghile*, when drinking your pieces
Listen to the baglamas**, which is playing on the top of the roof.

You "rode" the music, and you passed the Sea,
Then in a terrace, you arrived lately,
Your old man, was calling you a rebel girl from a corner,
And your mother was begging you not to leave again.

CHORUS
They are going to call you crazy, because you want to go to Aivalyk*** and sing Rebetika****,
They are going to make a bad rumor for you, they are going to say that Stella from Smyrna went mad because of the Hasish*****.

Then you were carrying your fortune (property) with a truck,
The fortune you were gathering a whole life, just for that moment.
Where is your beauty and your sweetness my sweet girl?
Now your voice turned into a scream….

You started blaming the God, for this heartless World.
You bring in your mind your neighborhood, which was turned into a burn.
You carry the Tzouras****** in your one hand, the sadness in your eyes.
And you are wandering: To live or not to live?

CHORUS



Some notes about words:
*Arghile: Hookah, water pipe. Popular in Turkey especially that period.
**Baglamas: Small stringed musical instrument. Like the bouzouki, but quite smaller.
***Ayvalik: Turkish name of city in Ionia, Asia Minor. The older Greek name was Cydoneae. In the period the song is referring the city had big number of both Greeks and Turks.
****Rebetika: Greek music genre. Founded by the Greeks of Asia Minor, and its songs were usually reffering to honour, love and the difficulties of life.
*****Hasish: Smokable drug. The one was called Marijuana in America. In the 20s it was popular in Asia Minor, as it was produced there in big numbers.
******Tzouras: Another stringed musical instrument. Between the size of the baglamas and the bouzouki.

Good morning WA2K.

Some of today's B.D. celebs:

Well it looks a bit strange as I see in English, in Greek it has rhyme . Reffering to the song I posted.

Ellinas, What a wondrous piece, and the footnotes are so welcome. I know about a hookah from Alice in Wonderland and the caterpillar, and it seems to me that hasish was the base word for assassin. The names of the stringed instruments are so unusual. Marvelous, my friend. You are a welcome addition to WA2K radio.

Well, Raggedy. Once again we have you to thank for the wonderful photos of the celebs. Ah, listeners. Before us we puruse the handsome face of Louis Jordan. There are two of them, I see. One an actor the other a musician. So, for the musical one:

Ain't That Just Like a Woman.

There was Adam, happy as a man could be
Till Eve got him messin' with that old apple tree

Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
They'll do it every time

Lot took his wife down to the corner for a malted
She wouldn't mind her business, boy, did she get salted

Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
They'll do it every time
Samson thought Delilah was on the square
Till one night she clipped him all his hair

Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
They'll do it every time

From our history books we all learned
Nero fiddled while Rome was burned

Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
They'll do it every time

Marie Antoinette met some hungry cats at the gate
They was crying for bread, she said, ";Let them eat cake";

Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
They'll do it every time

You can buy a woman clothes
And give her money on the side
No matter what you do
She ain't never satisfied
Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
Ain't that just like a woman?
They'll do it every time

Love it!

Oh, yes. Letty needs to make a slight distinction between the two Louis men. The French one is Louis Jourdan(Louis Gendre). I never knew that. I do hope Francis is back with us soon.