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Marcello Mastroianni
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni (September 28, 1924 - December 19, 1996) was an Academy Award nominated Italian film actor.

Born in Fontana Liri, a small village in the Apennines, Mastroianni grew up in Turin and Rome. During World War II he was interned in a Nazi prison, but he escaped and hid in Venice.

In 1945 he started working for a film company and began taking acting lessons. His film debut was in I Miserabili (from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables) in 1947.

He soon became a major international star, starring in Big Deal on Madonna Street; and in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita with Anita Ekberg in 1960, where he played a disillusioned and self-loathing tabloid columnist who spends his days and nights exploring Rome's high society.

Mastroianni followed La Dolce Vita with another signature role, that of a film director who, amidst self-doubt and troubled love affairs, finds himself in a creative block while making a movie in Fellini's 8½.

Mastroianni was married to Italian actress Flora Carabella (1926 - 1999) from 1948 until his death. They had one child together, Barbara.

He also had a daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, with his longtime mistress, the actress Catherine Deneuve; both Flora and Catherine were at his bedside when he died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 72.

Brigitte Bardot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born
September 28, 1934
Paris, France

Brigitte Bardot (born September 28, 1934) is a French actress, former fashion model and singer, considered the embodiment of the 1950s "sex kitten."

In the 1970s after her retirement from the entertainment industry - Bardot established herself as an animal rights activist, which she continues today. During the 1990s she was outspoken about her political views on such issues as immigration, Islam in France, race mixing, and homosexuality.

Biography

Bardot was born in Paris to Anne-Marie Mucel and Charles "Pilou" Bardot, an industrialist. At an early age her mother encouraged her interest in music and dance, she had modelled for popular magazine Elle by the time she was 15 years old. [1]

Film career

In 1952, she appeared on screen for the first time in Le Trou Normand. That same year, at age 18, she married director Roger Vadim, with whom she had been romantically involved for several years.

Although the European film industry was then in the ascendant, her personal rise was remarkable; she has been one of the few European actresses to receive mass media attention in the United States. She and Marilyn Monroe were the icons of female sexuality in the 1950s and 1960s and whenever she made public appearances in the United States the media hordes covered her every move.

Her films of the early and mid 1950s were lightweight romantic dramas, some of them historical, in which she was cast as ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. She played bit parts in three English-language films, the British comedy Doctor at Sea (1955), Helen of Troy (1954), in which she was understudy for the title-role but only appears as Helen's handmaid, and Act of Love (1954) with Kirk Douglas. Her French-language films were dubbed for international release. "She is every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris" said the film-critic Ivon Addams in 1955.

Vadim was not content with this light fare. The New Wave of French and Italian art directors and their stars were riding high internationally and he felt Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art-film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in And God Created Woman (1956) with Jean-Louis Trintignant.

The film, about an amoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a big international success. She may have had an affair with her co-star Trintignant, but this was more likely a pre-release publicity gimmick. The film is often wrongly described as her first film (it was her seventeenth) and to have launched her overnight, but it did help move her towards the cinematic mainstream.

It also ruled out a transition to Hollywood, where she was thought too risqué to handle. The Doris Day era was in still in full swing and even Jane Russell in The French Line (1953) had been thought to be going too far by showing her midriff. Erotica like Bardot's Cette sacrée gamine (That Crazy Kid, 1955) was considered fine at the box-office as long as it was clearly labelled "European". Bardot's limited English and strong accent, while beguiling to the ears of men, did not suit rapid-fire Hollywood scripts. In any event, staying in Europe benefited her image when the 1960s began to swing and Hollywood slipped into the background for a while, and Bardot was voted honorary sex-goddess of the decade.

Divorced from Vadim in 1957, she married actor Jacques Charrier (1959-62), by whom in 1960 she had her only child, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier from whom she is estranged. She once referred to her only child as "a tumour". The marriage was preyed on by the paparazzi and there were clashes over the direction of Bardot's career. Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining to most of the world a glamour model.


Vie privée (1960), directed by Louis Malle has more than an element of autobiography in it. The scene in which, returning to her flat, Bardot's character is harangued in the lift by a middle-aged cleaning-lady calling her a tramp and a tart was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century.

Soon after, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France and is now known to have attempted suicide, but as the sexual revolution of the early 1960s gathered momentum her lifestyle began to seem more like the norm and the pressure lifted. Through the sixties, she was happy to appear in glossy star-vehicles like Viva Maria (1969), to dabble in pop music and to play the role of glamour model and icon. In 1965 she appeared as herself in the Hollywood production Dear Brigitte starring Jimmy Stewart.

Her other husbands were German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs (1966-69), and French right-wing politician, Bernard d'Ormale (1992-present). She has also had reputed relationships with many men including singers Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In the late 1950s, she shared an exchange she considered "croiser de deux sillages" with writer John Gilmore, then an actor in France for a New Wave film to have starred Jean Seberg. Gilmore told Paris Match, "I felt a beautiful warmth with Bardot but found it difficult to discuss things to any depth whatsoever".

She is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear in early films such as Manina (Woman without a Veil, 1952) and in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. She even sported an early version of the monokini from time to time. Though this was not considered extraordinary in France, it was considered nearly scandalous in the US. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her and she joined Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, in becoming a subject for Andy Warhol paintings.

In 1970, the sculptor Alain Gourdon used Bardot as the model for a bust of Marianne, the French national emblem.

Activism

In 1974, just before her fortieth birthday, Bardot announced her retirement. After appearing in more than fifty motion pictures, and recording several music albums, most notably with Serge Gainsbourg, she chose to use her fame to promote animal rights.

In 1986, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewelry and many personal belongings. Today, she is one of the world's most influential animal rights activists and a major opponent of the consumption of horse meat.

Considered a militant for animal protection, she condemned seal hunting in Canada during a visit to that country. She sought to discuss the issue with Stephen Harper, though her request for a meeting was denied[2].

Politics

She is also one of the most celebrated supporters of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right-wing Front National political party, with which her husband is associated. With the publication of her 2003 book, A Scream in the Silence, the reclusive Bardot has come under considerable fire for anti-Muslim, and anti-gay comments. In May 2003, The MRAP announced that it would sue Bardot for her published views. Another organisation, The "Ligue des Droits de l'Homme" (League of Human Rights), announced that it was considering similar legal proceedings.

Bardot, in a letter to a French gay magazine, wrote in her defense, "Apart from my husband?-who maybe will cross over one day as well?-I am entirely surrounded by homos. For years they have been my support, my friends, my adopted children, my confidants".[citation needed]

On June 10, 2004 Bardot was convicted by a French court of "inciting racial hatred" and fined 5,000 €, which was the fourth such conviction/fine she has faced from French courts. Bardot's previous comments that led to convictions included ones encouraging civilian massacres in Algeria.[citation needed] The courts cited passages where Bardot referred to the "Islamization of France" and the "underground and dangerous infiltration of Islam"[3], her descriptions of France's Muslim community, the largest in Europe. In the book she also referred to homosexuals as "fairground freaks" and she condemns the presence of women in government.

Quotation

"She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films." Time magazine.
"Well, my telephone rang it would not stop, / It's President Kennedy callin' me up. / He said, "My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?" / I said, "My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot, / Anita Ekberg, / Sophia Loren. / Country'll grow." ?- Bob Dylan[4]

Ben E. King
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ben E. King (born Benjamin Earl Nelson in September 28, 1938 in Henderson, North Carolina) is an American soul and pop singer. He is best known as the singer and co-composer of "Stand by Me", a top ten hit in both 1961 and 1986.

In 1958, Ben Nelson joined a doo wop group, The Five Crowns. Later that same year, The Drifters' manager fired the members of the group and replaced them with the Five Crowns, who had performed several engagements with the Drifters. He co-wrote the first hit by the new version of the Drifters, "There Goes My Baby" (1959). He also sang lead, using his birth name, on "Save the Last Dance for Me," a song written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, "Dance With Me," "This Magic Moment," "I Count the Tears," and "Lonely Winds".

In 1960 he left the group after failing to gain a salary increase and a fairer share of the group's royalties. At this point he assumed the more memorable stage name Ben E. King in preparation for a solo career. Remaining on Atlantic, King scored his first solo hit with the stylish, Latin-tinged ballad "Spanish Harlem" (1961). "Stand by Me" was his next recording. "Stand by Me", written by King along with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller was voted one of the Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America. "Stand by Me" and "Spanish Harlem" were named as two of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll and were both also given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

King's records continued to place well on the pop charts until 1963, when British pop bands began to dominate the popular music scene. His hits after 1963 were "What is Soul?" (1967), "Supernatural Thing, part 1" (1975), and the re-issue in 1986 of "Stand by Me" following the song's use as the theme music to the movie of the same name.

Currently Ben E. King is active in his charitable foundation the Stand By Me Foundation. http://www.benekingstandbyme.org/

My first job was working in an Orange Juice factory, but I got canned. I couldn't concentrate.

Then I worked in the woods as a Lumberjack,but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe.

After that, I tried to be a Tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it -mainly because it was a sew-sew job.

Next, I tried working in a Muffler Factory, but that was too exhausting.

Then, I tried to be a Chef -figured it would add a little spice to my life,
but I just didn't have the thyme.

I attempted to be a Deli Worker,but any way I sliced it, I couldn't cut the mustard.

My best job was being a Musician, but eventually I found I wasn't noteworthy.

I studied a long time to become a Doctor, but I didn't have any patience.

Next, was a job in a Shoe Factory. I tried but I just didn't fit in.

I became a Professional Fisherman, but discovered that I couldn't live on my net income.

I managed to get a good job working for a Pool Maintenance Company, but the work was just too draining.

So then I got a job in a Workout Center, but they said I wasn't fit for the job.

After many years of trying to find steady work, I finally got a job as an
Historian - until I realized there was no future in it.

My last job was working in Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind.

SO, I TRIED RETIREMENT AND FOUND I'M PERFECT FOR THE JOB!

Well, folks, our BB, King of the bio's is back and completing Tryagain's pun places. Love it, hawk.

You always leave us with new info that is really revealing.(not just Bardot)

Al Capp was charged with "attempted adultry"? That's a new one, listeners.

I didn't know that the Rollin' Stones did "Let's Spend the Night Together", but I do know it by David Bowie.

David Bowie - Let's Spend The Night Together

Well, don't you worry 'bout what's been on my mind
I'm in no hurry
I can take my time
I'm going red
and my tongue's getting tired
Out of my head and my mouth's getting dry
I'm h-h-h-high

[CHORUS]
Let's spend the night together
Now I need you more than ever
Let's spend the night together now

I feel so strong
that I can't disguise, oh my
Well, I just can't apologise, no
Don't hang me up but don't let me down
We could have fun just by fooling around, and around
and around

[CHORUS]

Oh, You know I'm smiling baby
You need some guiding baby
I'm just deciding baby

[CHORUS]

This doesn't happen to me every day
No excuses I've got anyway, heh
I'll satisfy your every need
And I'll know you'll satisfy me, oh my-my-my my-my

Let's spend the night together
Now I need you more than ever [x3]

Let's spend the night together
They said we were too young
Our kind of love
was no fun
But our love
comes from above
Do it!
Let's make love
Hoo!

[CHORUS]

Better to Find Out For Yourself
Buffy Sainte-Marie

Every little baby that's ever been born
Been spnked and made to cry
Ever young woman that's ever been loved
Been shaken and made to sigh
Every young woman that's ever been loved
Has told me told me true
Take his heart and run away
As he would do to you
Every young man I've ever seen
Been mean as he could be
Every last one I've loved and run
As he would do to me
Take it from me that a man can be
More trouble than you'll ever know
He'll love you some and when he's done
He'll laugh and let you go

So they told me
And they told me little else
But I tell you
Better to find out for yourself

Handsome stride and shoulders wide
Disguise a heart of stone
Lover's wiles and tender smiles
Are better left alone
With his head hung down
And his shoulders low
And a tear in the bottom of his shoe
He'll beg and tease and vow on his knees
And then betray you true
He'll say I'm tired I'm broke I'm sick
I love you while he cries
He'll say I'm sorry through his tears
And all the time he lies
Shudder and sulk when he's at his best
Try one if you will
You can have mine and all the rest
You know I've had my fill

So they told me
And they told me little else
But I tell you
Better to find out for yourself

Well, folks, edgar's Buffy is saying "...it's better to find out for yourself..." and Letty is still trying to find out about this country lady and her association with Patrick Coutin.

The Corner Of The Bar

From the corner of the bar I can see all of Paris.
I can see my whole life pass before my eyes,
and from a million miles away I should have seen it clearly,
but somehow now I see your face on every stranger passing by.

Looks like such a big 'ol world but you're the only one
who really means the world to me when it's all said and done.
Isn't it a funny thing to have to come so far
just to see everything from the corner of a bar?

From the corner of the bar I whispered Viva La France.
Oh,listen to the heart of Paris. It's beating like a lullaby.
Somewhere in the stars I hear your voice returning,singing,
"Where Is My Love" as I stare off into the nighttime sky.

Looks like such a big 'ol world but you're the only one
who really means the world to me when it's all said and done.
Isn't it a funny thing to have to come so far
just to see everything from the corner of the bar?

Oh, Sil vous plais garçon
Je vous dire encore de vin.
'Cause I can see the whole world from the corner of this bar !

Words & Music: Kimmie Rhodes

What's made milwaukee famous sure has made a loser out of me
Jerry Lee Lewis

It's late and she's waiting and I know I should go home
But every time I start to leave they play another song
Then someone buys another round and wherever drinks are free
What's made Milwaukee famous has made a fool out of me

Baby's, begged me not to go so many times before
She says love and happiness can't live behind those swinging doors
Nows she's gone and I'm to blame to late I finally see
What's made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of me

Baby's, begged me not to go so many times before
She says love and happiness just can't live behind those swinging doors
Nows she's gone and I'm to blame to late I finally see
What's made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of me
What's made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of me

More

More than stars
Can shine on any moonlit night
More than the many years
That history could write
More than ill fated love
Could ever shed a tear
More than all the world
Could hold both far and near

More than all the wealth
One could own
More than the many
Seeds ever sown
More than the dreams dreamt
More than the thoughts
That tempt

CHORUS
More than any can say
More than anyway
More than anything
Only your love can bring me more

More than the endless
Grains of sand
More than the many miles
Traveled across the land
More than the tangled forest
Stretching vast and deep
More than the secrets
Anyone could keep

CHORUS
More than any can say
More than anyway
More than anything
Only your love can bring me more

RexRed

Greer Garson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born 29 September 1904
London, England, UK
Died 6 April 1996
Dallas, Texas, USA

Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson (September 29, 1904 - April 6, 1996) was an Academy Award-winning actress, most known for being the leading lady in many pictures co-starring Walter Pidgeon.

Early life

Known in childhood as "Eggy" and supposedly born in Castlewellan, County Down, Ireland, in 1908, she was actually born in Manor Park, London, England in 1904, the only child of George Garson (1865-1906), a clerk from the Orkney Islands, who was himself the son of a Protestant Irish-born cabinetmaker, and his Scottish wife, Nancy ("Nina") Sophia Greer.

She was educated at the University of London, where she earned degrees in French and 18th-century literature. She intended to become a teacher, but instead began working with an advertising agency, and appeared in local theatrical productions. She also appeared on television during the 1930s, most notably in a thirty-minute production of an excerpt of Twelfth Night in May 1937, alongside Peggy Ashcroft, which was the first known instance of a Shakespeare play being performed on television.

Career

She was discovered by Louis B. Mayer while he was in London looking for new talents. Garson was signed to a contract with MGM and appeared in her first American film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, in 1939. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind.

Greer Garson became a major box office star in 1941 with the sentimental Technicolor drama Blossoms in the Dust which brought her the first of Five consecutive Best Actress Oscar nominations, tying Bette Davis' 1938-1942 record, a record that still stands in the category. Garson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for her role as a plucky British matron surviving in the midst of war in Mrs. Miniver. She was also nominated for Madame Curie (1943), Mrs. Parkington (1944), and The Valley of Decision (1945).

She had been America's most popular dramatic actress for several years when she was teamed with Clark Gable in his first film since returning from war service in 1945 titled Adventure. Garson's popularity dropped somewhat in the late 1940's but she remained a famous and popular film star until the mid 1950's.

In 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. After her MGM contract expired in 1954, she made only a few films. In 1958, she received a warm reception on Broadway in Auntie Mame, replacing Rosalind Russell, who had gone to Hollywood to make the film version. In 1960, Garson received her seventh and final Oscar nomination for Sunrise at Campobello, in which she played Eleanor Roosevelt, this time losing to Elizabeth Taylor for BUtterfield 8 .

Garson's last film was 1967's The Happiest Millionaire, although she made infrequent television appearances. In 1968 she narrated the children's television special The Little Drummer Boy which went on to become one of the classic Christmas television programs and which has been broadcast annually every year since 1966.

Personal life

The actress was married three times:

Her first husband, whom she married on September 28, 1933, was Edward (later Sir Edward) Alec Abbot Snelson (1904-1992), a British civil servant who became a noted judge and expert in Indian and Pakistani affairs; the real marriage reportedly lasted only a few weeks, but was not formally dissolved until 1943.
Her second husband, whom she married in 1943, was Richard Ney (1915-2004), the young actor who played her son in "Mrs. Miniver"; they divorced in 1949, with Garson claiming that Ney had called her a "has-been" and belittled her age. Ney eventually became a respected stock-market analyst and financial consultant.
That same year (1949) she married a millionaire Texas oilman and horse breeder, E. E. "Buddy" Fogelson (died 1987), and in 1967, the couple retired to the Forked Lightning Ranch in New Mexico. They also lived in Dallas, Texas, where Garson funded the Greer Garson Theater facility at Southern Methodist University (SMU).
She died from heart failure in Dallas on April 6, 1996, at the age of 91, and is interred there in the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery.

Gene Autry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Orvon Gene Autry (September 29, 1907 - October 2, 1998) was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television.


Early life

Autry, the grandson of a Methodist preacher, was born near Tioga, Texas. His parents, Delbert Autry and Elnora Ozmont, moved to Ravia, Oklahoma in the 1920s. After leaving high school in 1925, Autry worked as a telegrapher for the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway.


Career

Radio

An amateur talent with the guitar and voice led to his performing at local dances. After an encouraging chance encounter with Will Rogers, he began performing on local radio in 1928 as "Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy".

Singing

He signed a recording deal with Columbia Records in 1931. He worked in Chicago, Illinois on the WLS (AM) radio show National Barn Dance for four years with his own show where he met singer/songwriter Smiley Burnette. In his early recording career Autry covered various genres, including a labor song, "The Death of Mother Jones" in 1931. But his first hit was in 1932 with That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine, a duet with fellow railroad man, Jimmy Long.

In films

Discovered by film producer Nat Levine in 1934, he and Burnette made their film debut for Mascot Pictures Corp. in In Old Santa Fe as part of a singing cowboy quartet; he was then given the starring role by Levine in 1935 in the 12-part serial The Phantom Empire. Shortly thereafter, Mascot was absorbed by the formation of Republic Pictures Corp. and Autry went along to make a further 44 films up to 1940, all B westerns in which he played under his own name, rode his horse Champion, had Burnette as his regular sidekick and had many opportunities to sing in each film. He became the top Western star at the box-office by 1937, reaching his national peak of popularity from 1940 to 1942.

He was the first of the singing cowboys, succeeded as the top star by Roy Rogers when Autry served as a flier with the Air Transport command during World War II. From 1940 to 1956, Autry also had a weekly radio show on CBS, Gene Autry's Melody Ranch. Another money-spinner was his Gene Autry Flying "A" Ranch Rodeo show which debuted in 1940.

He briefly returned to Republic after the war, to finish out his contract, which had been suspended for the duration of his military service and which he had tried to have declared void after his discharge. Thereafter, he formed his own production company to make westerns under his own control, which were distributed by Columbia Pictures, beginning in 1947. He also starred and produced his own television show on CBS beginning in 1950. He retired from show business in 1964, having made almost a hundred films up to 1955 and over 600 records. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969 and to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Post-retirement he invested widely in real estate, radio and television, including buying the copyrights from dying Republic Pictures for the films he had made for them.

As baseball executive

In 1960, when Major League Baseball announced plans to add an expansion team in Los Angeles, Autry - who had once declined an opportunity to play in the minor leagues - expressed an interest in acquiring the radio broadcast rights to the team's games; baseball executives were so impressed by his approach that he was persuaded to become the owner of the franchise rather than simply its broadcast partner. The team, initially called the Los Angeles Angels upon its 1961 debut, moved to suburban Anaheim in 1966 and became known as the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels from 1997 until 2005, when it became the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. In 1995 he sold a quarter share of the team to The Walt Disney Company, and a controlling interest the following year, with the remaining share to be transferred after his death. Earlier, in 1982, he sold Los Angeles television station KTLA for $245 million.

Personal life

In 1932 he married Ina May Spivey (who died in 1980), who was the niece of Jimmy Long. He married his second wife, Jackie Autry, in 1981.

He had no children by either marriage.

Legacy

In 1972, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

His autobiography was published in 1976, co-written by Mickey Herskowitz; it was titled Back in the Saddle Again after his 1939 hit and signature tune. He is also featured year after year, on radio and "shopping mall theme music" at the holiday season, by his famous recording of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer". "Rudolph" became the first #1 hit of the 1950's.

CMT in 2003 ranked him #38 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country.

When the Anaheim Angels won their first World Series in 2002, much of the championship was dedicated to him.

The interchange of Interstate 5 and California State Route 134, located near the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage, is signed as the "Gene Autry Memorial Interchange."

The Museum figures as the centerpiece of his legacy

The Museum of the American West, in Los Angeles' Griffith Park, was founded in 1988 as the "Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum", featuring much of his collection of Western art and memorabilia. It has become a very respected institution, preserving the essence of everything related to the "mythic appects" of the American "old west". Everything from true historical lifestyles, to the 70-year sage of the Hollywood "western movie" genre.


Gene's Bronze statue at Museum in compatible 3DIncluded for many years on Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans, he slipped to their "near miss" category in 1995 with an estimated net worth of $320 million.

Gene Autry died of lymphoma at age 91 at his home in Studio City, California, and is interred in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2003. He is also the only person to date to receive 5 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for contributions in all five possible categories: the motion picture star is located on 6644 Hollywood Blvd., the radio star is located on 6520 Hollywood Blvd., the recording star is located on 6384 Hollywood Blvd., the TV star is located on 6667 Hollywood Blvd. and the live theatre star is located on 7000 Hollywood Blvd.

In 2004, the Starz Entertainment Corporation joined forces with the Autry estate to restore all of his films, which have been shown on Starz's Encore Western Channel on cable television on a regular basis to date since.

Trevor Howard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born 29 September 1913
Cliftonville, Kent, England
Died 7 January 1988
Bushey, Hertfordshire, England

Trevor Howard, CBE (29 September 1913-7 January 1988), born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, was an English movie and television actor.

Early life

Howard was born in Cliftonville, Kent, he was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and acted on the London stage for several years before World War II. He married the actress Helen Cherry (1915-2001) on 8 September 1944.

Film career

His first major role was in Brief Encounter in 1945, and starred in The Third Man (1949), The Key (1958) and Sons and Lovers (1960), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

A great character actor, many times appearing in war and period pieces, Howard later appeared in such films as Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), Father Goose (1964), Morituri (1965), Von Ryan's Express (1965), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Ryan's Daughter (1969), Battle of Britain (1969), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), Pope Joan (1972), Ludwig (1972), A Doll's House (1973), Superman (1978), Gandhi (1982), White Mischief (1987), and The Dawning (1988). One of his strangest films, and one he took great delight in was Vivian Stanshall's 1978 Sir Henry at Rawlinson End in which he played the title role.

A major television role was in Staying On (1980).

Death

He died from a combination of bronchitis, influenza and jaundice, in Arkley in 1988 at the age of 74, survived by his widow Helen.

Legacy

He is commemorated by the Trevor Howard Bar at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames.

Stanley Kramer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stanley Kramer (September 29, 1913 - February 19, 2001) was an American film director and producer responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies.[1] His work was recognized with The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1961.

Director Steven Spielberg once described him as "one of our great filmmakers, not just for the art and passion he put on screen, but for the impact he has made on the conscience of the world."[1]

Early years

Kramer lived with his grandmother in the area known as Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. From an early age, Kramer had connections with the film industry; his uncle, Earl Kramer, worked in distribution at Universal Pictures and then as an agent in Hollywood. Kramer's mother also worked in a secretarial position at Paramount Pictures. Kramer attended DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx and New York University; in his final year at the university, he was offered a paid internship in the writing department of 20th Century Fox. Kramer took the job although he had originally planned on attending law school.[citation needed]

In 1941 he worked as a production assistant on The Moon and Sixpence and So Ends Our Night.[2] Two years later, in 1943, Kramer was drafted, but avoided going to war by working for an army film unit in New York. In 1948 Kramer organized an independent production company, Screen Plays Inc. His partners in the company were with the writer Herbie Baker, publicist George Glass and producer Carl Foreman, who he had met previously during his time with the army film unit. It was during Kramer's career as a producer that he began to receive recognition for his talent.

While the first movie produced under his production company was a failure, So This Is New York (1948), directed by Richard Fleischer, the following film directed by Mark Robson, Champion, starring Kirk Douglas, was a success. The film received six Academy Awards nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Cinematography, Black and White, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay. The film also won an Oscar for Best Film Editing. In the next three years, Kramer produced Home of the Brave (1949), which was another success for the budding producer. In 1950, he produced The Men, which included Marlon Brando's screen debut.

Columbia Pictures

A year later, Harry Cohn, the president of Columbia Pictures offered Kramer the chance to make movies under his studio. Kramer was given free reign of what films he chose to make, along with a budget that topped at 980,000 dollars.[citation needed] While Kramer accepted the job, he spent the rest of the year finishing his last independent production, the film High Noon, a Western drama directed by Fred Zinnemann. The movie was well received, winning four Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Original Song and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic of Comedy Picture, as well as three nominations for Best Director, Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay.

In October 1951, Kramer ended his partnership with Carl Foreman, who was asked to testify about his past involvement with the Communist Party. Kramer was still producing movies at Columbia, such as Death of a Salesman (1951), The Sniper (1952), The Member of the Wedding (1952), The Juggler (1953), The Wild One (1953) and The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953). While the movies were not considered successful, they are now found very interesting and are highly praised.[citation needed]

In 1953 the president of Columbia, Harry Cohn and Stanley Kramer agreed to terminate the five year contract Kramer had made to Columbia. However, for his last Columbia film, Kramer was determined to regain all of the investments Columbia had made in Kramer's previously unsuccessful films. The film, The Caine Mutiny, was an adaptation of the book written by Herman Wouk and was directed by Edward Dmytryk. Kramer faced resistance from the US Navy, which the film depicted, for presenting what they considered an unfair portrayal. Kramer was able to negotiate a deal with the Navy, attempting to make the film as accurate and fair as possible. The film's cast included multiple noted actors of the time, including Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray and Jose Ferrer. Cohn kept Kramer under tight limitations, such as a budget under two and half million dollars and a running time of two hours. The result was extremely successful. The eleven million dollars it generated made up for any of Kramer's lost profits previously.

Directing

After The Caine Mutiny, Kramer left Columbia and resumed his independent production, but this time he occupied the role of the director. During this time, Kramer reestablished himself through Not As a Stranger (1955) and The Pride and the Passion (1957). Fortunately for Kramer, he was able to avoid the Hollywood blacklist, which had affected so many other members of the film industry. However, Kramer was well known for his liberal views and his desire to produce and direct controversial films.[citation needed] In 1958 he directed The Defiant Ones, On the Beach (1959), Inherit the Wind (1960) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). All of the films were bold and dealt with uncomfortable and serious subjects.

In contrast to his previous films however, in 1963 Kramer produced and directed the multi-million dollar, all-star comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Four years later, in 1967, Kramer released Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. It is speculated that out of all of his films, this film was the one that Kramer was the most proud of.[citation needed] The film starred Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton and the final screen teaming of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The film was a hit, earning eight Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Art Direction, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music and Best Picture, along with two Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. In the following years, Kramer directed films such as Bless the Beasts and Children (1971), Oklahoma Crude (1973) and The Runner Stumbles (1979).

In 1997 Kramer published his autobiography, entitled A Mad Mad Mad Mad World: A Life in Hollywood. Stanley Kramer died on February 19th, 2001 in Los Angeles after suffering from pneumonia.

Lizabeth Scott
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lizabeth Scott (born September 29, 1922) is an American actress.

Early life

She was born Emma Matzo in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, the daughter of John and Mary Matzo. Her parents were Roman Catholic immigrants from Slovakia. The family later resided in nearby Scranton, where Emma attended Central High School and Marywood College.

She later went to New York City and attended the Alvienne School of Drama. In late 1942, she was eking out a precarious living with a small Midtown Manhattan summer stock company when she got a job as understudy for Tallulah Bankhead in Thornton Wilder's play The Skin of Our Teeth. However, Scott never had an opportunity to substitute for Bankhead.

Rise To Fame

When Miriam Hopkins was signed to replace Bankhead, Scott quit and returned to her drama studies and some fashion modeling. She then received a call that Gladys George, who was signed to replace Hopkins, was ill, and Scott was needed back at the theatre. She then went on in the key and leading role of "Sabina", receiving a nod of approval from critics at the tender age of 20. The following night George was out again and Scott went on in her place.

Soon afterward, Scott was at the Stork Club when motion picture producer Hal Wallis sent over an inquiry as to who she was, unaware that an aide had already arranged an interview with her for the following day. When Scott returned home, however, she found a telegram offering her the lead for the Boston run of The Skin of Our Teeth. She could not turn it down. She sent Wallis her apologies and went on the road.

Though the Broadway production, in which she received a credit as "Girl," christened her "Elizabeth," she dropped the "e" the day after the opening night in Boston, "just to be different."

A photograph of Scott in the magazine Harper's Bazaar was then seen by the movie agent Charles Feldman. He admired the fashion pose and took its model on as a client. Scott made her first screen test at Warner Brothers, where she and Hal Wallis finally met. Though the test was bad, he recognized her possibilities. As soon as he set up shop for himself at Paramount, she was signed to a contract. Her movie debut was in You Came Along (1945) opposite Robert Cummings.

Paramount publicity dubbed Scott "The Threat," in order to create an onscreen persona for her similar to Lauren Bacall or Veronica Lake. Scott's smoky sensuality and husky-voice lent itself to the film noir genre and, beginning with The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin, the studio cast her in a series of thrillers.

The dark blonde actress was initially compared to Bacall because of a slight resemblance and a similar voice. Even more so after she starred with Bacall's husband, Humphrey Bogart, in the 1947 noir thriller Dead Reckoning. The movie was Scott's first of many roles as a femme fatale.

She also starred in Desert Fury (1947), a noir filmed in Technicolor, with John Hodiak, Burt Lancaster, Wendell Corey, and Mary Astor. In it, she played the role as Paula Haller, who, on her return from college, falls for a gangster, Eddie Mannix (played by Hodiak), and receives a great deal of opposition from the others.

Scott was paired with Lancaster, Corey, and Kirk Douglas in Hal Wallis' I Walk Alone (1948), a noirish story of betrayal and vengeance.

After being known professionally as Lizabeth Scott for 4 1/2 years, she appeared at the courthouse in Los Angeles, on October 20, 1949, and had her name legally changed.

Scandal

Scott never married or had children. True or false, rumors and allegations concerning her sexual (lesbian [1]) preferences began. In 1955, she hired famed attorney Jerry Giesler and sued Confidential Magazine for $2,500,000 in libel damages.

She charged that in the September issue it was implied that she was "prone to indecent, illegal and highly offensive acts in her private and public life"; "These implications," Scott said, "are willfully, wrongfully, maliciously and completely without truth.". However, her case was thrown out on a technicality, and she chose to drop the issue rather than pursuing it further.

After completing Loving You (1957), which was Elvis Presley's second movie, Scott retired from the screen. She continued to appear in occasional guest starring roles on television, however, for several years.

Later Life

In 1972, she made one final motion picture appearance in Pulp with Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney.

Since then, she has retreated from public view, and has declined all interview requests, probably because she does not wish to discuss her sexuality.

Lizabeth Scott has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures at 1624 Vine Street in Hollywood

Anita Ekberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anita Marianne Ekberg (born on September 29, 1931 in Malmö, Skåne) is a Swedish former model and actress.

Career

A 1951 Miss Sweden ?- she competed in the Miss Universe pageant ?- Ekberg is best-known for her role as Sylvia in La Dolce Vita, directed by Federico Fellini.

Ethel Merman dubbed the well-endowed Ekberg (measurements 40-22-36) "the thinking man's dunce cap: two of them." Bob Hope joked that her parents had received the Nobel Prize for architecture as she was touring with him and William Holden to entertain U.S. troops in 1954.

That tour led her to a contract with John Wayne's Batjac Productions. Wayne cast her in Blood Alley (1955) as a Chinese woman, a role that earned her a Golden Globe award.

Although many of her films are largely forgotten now, she appeared in several notable features: the low-budget Film Noir Screaming Mimi (1958) directed by Gert Oswald who already used her the previous year opposite Sterling Hayden in Valerie; War and Peace where she played Henry Fonda's unfaithful wife, Princess Elena. She also appeared in two Frank Tashlin films with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin: Artists and Models (1955) and Hollywood or Bust (1956). In Back from Eternity, (1956) she was cast as Robert Ryan's leading lady.

However it was Federico Fellini who gave Ekberg her greatest role in La Dolce Vita in 1960, in which she played the unattainable "dream woman" opposite Marcello Mastroianni; then Boccaccio '70 in 1960, a movie that also featured Sophia Loren. Fellini would call her back for two other films: I Clowns (1972), and Intervista (1987), where she played herself in a reunion scene with Mastroianni.

Fellini aside, she was not offered many notable good films in the 60's. Four for Texas by Robert Aldrich (1963) with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Ursula Andress, and Woman Times Seven by Vittorio de Sica in 1967, with Shirley MacLaine. Two films in 1966, The Alphabet Murders again with Frank Tashlin, and Way...Way Out, the latter introducing Linda Harrison in her first movie; and a small role in If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium in 1969.

Private life

Ekberg was married to the British actor Anthony Steel from 1956 to 1959. From 1963 to 1975, she was married to the actor Rik Van Nutter; during their marriage, she had several miscarriages, but no successful pregnancies.

She reportedly was romantically involved with Tyrone Power, Marcello Mastroianni, Errol Flynn, Yul Brynner, Frank Sinatra, and Gary Cooper; she also had a three-year affair with the late Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli.

Ekberg has resided in Rome for many years.

Quotes

"It was I who made Fellini famous, not the other way around." [1]

Jerry Lee Lewis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Jerry Lee Lewis (born September 29, 1935) is an American rock and roll and country music singer, songwriter, and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. His nickname is The Killer.

Biography

Lewis was born to the poor family of Elmo and Mamie Lewis in Ferriday, Louisiana, and began playing piano in his youth with his two cousins, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Lee Swaggart. Influenced by a piano-playing older cousin Carl McVoy, the radio, and the sounds from the African American joint across the tracks at Haney's Big House, Lewis developed his own style mixing rhythm and blues, boogie woogie, gospel, and country music. Soon he was playing professionally.

His mother enrolled him in Southwestern Assemblies of God University, Waxahachie, Texas, secure in the knowledge that her son would now be exclusively singing his songs to the Lord. But legend has it that the he tore into a boogie-woogie rendition of "My God Is Real" at a church assembly that sent him packing the same night. Pearry Green (then president of the student body) related how during a talent show Jerry played some "worldly" music. The next morning the dean of the school called both Jerry and Pearry into his office to expel them both. Jerry then said that Pearry shouldn't be expelled because "he didn't know what I was going to do." Years later Pearry asked Jerry "Are you still playing the devil's music?" Jerry replied "Yes, I am. But you know it's strange, the same music that they kicked me out of school for is the same kind of music they play in their churches today. The difference is, I know I am playing for the devil and they don't."

Leaving religious music behind, he became a part of the burgeoning new rock and roll sound, cutting his first record in 1954. Two years later, at Sun Records studio in Memphis, Tennessee, producer and engineer Jack Clement discovered and recorded Lewis for the Sun label, while owner Sam Phillips was away on a trip to Florida. He became a session musician playing piano for Sun artists like Billy Lee Reilly and Carl Perkins. During his time as a session player, he was a member of the impromptu jam session known as the Million Dollar Quartet featuring Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Lewis.


Lewis' first recording at Sun studios was his own distinct version of the Ray Price song "Crazy Arms". In 1957, his piano and the pure rock and roll sound of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" propelled him to international fame. "Great Balls of Fire" soon followed, and would become his biggest hit. Watching and listening to Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis said if he could play the piano like that, he'd quit singing. Lewis' early billing was Jerry Lee Lewis and his Pumping Piano.

Lewis was a pioneer of Piano rock, not only through his sound by also through his dynamic performance. He would often kick the piano bench out of the way to play standing, rake his hands up and down the keyboard for dramatic accent, and even sit down on the instrument. His frenetic performance style can be seen in films such as "High School Confidential" (he sang the title song from the back of a flatbed truck), and "Jamboree". He has been called "rock & roll's first great wild man and also rock & roll's first great eclectic."[1] These performance techniques have been adopted by later Piano rock artists, notably admirers Elton John and Billy Joel.

Scandal

He married Jane Mitcham, his second wife, 23 days before his divorce from his first wife was final.

Lewis' turbulent personal life was hidden from the public until a 1958 British tour, when reporters learned about the twenty-three year old star's third wife, Myra Gale Brown, who also happened to be his thirteen year old first cousin once removed.

The publicity caused an uproar and the tour was cancelled after only three concerts. The scandal followed Lewis home to America, and as a result he almost vanished from the music scene. His only hit during this period was a cover of Ray Charles' "What'd I Say" in 1961.

His popularity recovered somewhat in Europe, especially in the UK and Germany during the mid 1960s. A live album, Live at the Star Club, Hamburg (1964), recorded with the Nashville Teens, is widely considered one of the greatest live rock and roll albums ever. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes that: "Live at the Star Club is extraordinary ?- the purest, hardest rock & roll ever committed to record .. Compared to this.. the Stooges sound constrained, hardcore punk seems neutered, and the Sex Pistols sound like wimps."[2]

Switch to country

A comeback eluded him in the United States, however, at least within the rock and roll genre. Although Lewis was again making steady money touring, he didn't have much success in the charts. Producers coaxed Lewis into trying instrumental piano tunes issued under pseudonyms, recording songs without the piano, and even playing the harpsichord. In the late 1960s, Mercury Records producer Jerry Kennedy convinced Lewis to make a complete switch to country music. Lewis, who had always considered country one of the genres he blended into his trademark sound, obliged and "Another Place, Another Time" shot up the country charts in 1968. More country hits soon followed over the late 1960s and through the 1970s, many of them crossing over into the Hot 100 charts.

Drug addiction and personal tragedies

Although he was always a heavy drinker, he increasingly became plagued by alcohol and drug problems after Myra divorced him in 1970. Tragedy struck when Lewis' 19-year-old son, Jerry Lee Lewis Jr., was killed in a road accident in 1973. During the 1960s, his second son, Steve Allen Lewis, had drowned in a swimming pool accident. He also has a daughter, Phoebe Lewis, who is a singer and musician - and for a few years also has been her father's manager. Lewis' own erratic behaviour during the 1970s led to his being hospitalized after nearly dying from a bleeding ulcer. Again addicted to drugs, Lewis checked himself into the Betty Ford Clinic.

While celebrating his 41st birthday in 1976, Lewis playfully pointed a gun at his bass player, Butch Owens, and thinking it was not loaded, pulled the trigger, shooting him in the chest. Owens miraculously survived. A few weeks later (November 23) he was involved in another gun-related arrest at Elvis Presley's Graceland residence. Lewis had been invited by Presley, but security was unaware of the visit. When questioned about why he was at the front gate, Lewis displayed a gun and jokingly told the guard he had come to kill Presley.

Later career

In 1989, a major motion picture based on his early life in rock & roll, Great Balls of Fire, brought him back into the public eye, especially when he decided to re-record all his songs for the movie soundtrack. The film was based on the book by Lewis' ex-wife, Myra Gayle Lewis, and starred Dennis Quaid as Lewis, Winona Ryder as Myra, and Alec Baldwin as Jimmy Swaggart.

The very public downfall of his cousin, television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, resulted in more adverse publicity to an already troubled family. Swaggart is also a piano player, as is another cousin, country music star Mickey Gilley. Lewis' sister, Linda Gail Lewis, is also a piano player, and has recorded with Van Morrison. The next year in 1990, Lewis made minor news when a new song he co-wrote called "It Was the Whiskey Talking, Not Me" was included in the soundtrack to the hit movie Dick Tracy. The song can even be heard in a scene from the movie in which it is playing on the radio.

Despite the personal problems, Lewis' musical talent is widely acknowledged. Nicknamed "The Killer" for his forceful voice and piano production on stage, he was described by fellow artist Roy Orbison as the best raw performer in the history of rock and roll music. In 1986, Lewis was part of the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

That same year, he returned to Sun Studios in Memphis to team up with Orbison, Cash, and Perkins to create the album Class of '55. This was not the first time he had teamed up with Cash and Perkins at Sun. On December 4, 1956, Presley dropped in on Phillips to pay a social visit while Perkins was in the studio cutting new tracks with Lewis backing him on piano. The three started an impromptu jam session, and Phillips left the tapes running. He later telephoned Cash and brought him in to join the others. These recordings, almost half of which were gospel songs, survived, and have been released on CD under the title Million Dollar Quartet. Tracks also include Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", Pat Boone's "Don't Forbid Me" and Presley doing an impersonation of Jackie Wilson (who was then with Billy Ward and the Dominoes) singing "Don't Be Cruel."

Lewis has never stopped touring, and fans who have seen him perform say he can still deliver unique concerts that are unpredictable, exciting, and personal. In February of 2005, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Recording Academy (which also grants the Grammy Awards.) On September 26th, 2006 a new album titled Last Man Standing was released, featuring many of rock and roll's elite as guest stars.

Madeline Kahn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born September 29, 1942
Boston, Massachusetts
Died December 3, 1999
New York, New York

Madeline Kahn (September 29, 1942 - December 3, 1999) was an American actress of movie, television, and theater distinguished by an unusual gift for comedy. Director Mel Brooks - who directed her in four films - said of her: "She is one of the most talented people that ever lived. I mean, either in stand-up comedy, or acting, or whatever you want, you can't beat Madeline Kahn".

Early life

Kahn was born in Boston, Massachusetts, as Madeline Gail Wolfson to a Jewish family. Her mother, Paula, was 17 when Kahn was born. Although Kahn's parents were high school sweethearts, they divorced after her father's return from World War II (Kahn was only two years old at the time). After the divorce was finalized, Kahn and her mother moved to New York City. A few years later, her mother remarried and this union gave Kahn two half-siblings, Jeffrey and Robyn. In 1948, Kahn was sent to a progressive boarding school in Pennsylvania, where she stayed until 1952. During that time, her mother pursued her ambition as an actress. Kahn herself soon began acting and performed in a number of school productions.

In 1960, she graduated from the Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village, New York, where she earned a drama scholarship to Hofstra University. At Hofstra, she studied music, drama and speech therapy and also performed in several campus productions. After changing her major a number of times, Kahn graduated in 1964 with a degree in speech therapy.

Career

Kahn began auditioning for professional acting roles shortly after her graduation from Hofstra; on the side, she briefly taught public school in Levittown, New York. Just before adopting the professional name Madeline Kahn (Kahn was her stepfather's last name), she made her stage debut as a chorus girl in a revival of Kiss Me, Kate, which led her to join the Actors' Equity. Her part in the flop How Now, Dow Jones was written out before the 1967 show reached Broadway, as did her role as "Miss Whipple" in the original production of Promises, Promises. But she earned her first break on Broadway with New Faces of 1968. That same year, she performed her first professional lead in a special concert performance of the operetta Candide in honor of Leonard Bernstein's 50th birthday. In 1969, she appeared off-Broadway in the revue Promenade.

She appeared in two Broadway musicals in the 1970s: a featured role in Richard Rodgers' 1970 Noah's Ark-themed show Two by Two (her silly waltz "The Golden Ram," capped by a high C, can be heard on the show's cast album) and a leading lady turn as Lily Garland in 1978's On the Twentieth Century. She left (or was fired from) the latter show early in its run, yielding the role to her understudy, Judy Kaye, whose career it launched. She also starred in a 1977 Town Hall revival of She Loves Me (opposite Barry Bostwick and original London cast member Rita Moreno).

Kahn's film debut came that same year with a role in De Düva: The Dove. Her most famous roles followed in the 1970's. Her breakthrough performance came as Ryan O'Neal's hysterical fiancé Eunice Burns ("I am not A Eunice Burns; I am THE Eunice Burns!") in Peter Bogdanovich's screwball comedy What's Up, Doc? (1972) starring Barbra Streisand. Her film career continued with Paper Moon (1973), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Kahn was cast in the role of Agnes Gooch in the 1974 film Mame, but star Lucille Ball fired Kahn due to artistic differences.

A close succession of Kahn comedies - Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974) and High Anxiety (1977) - were all directed by Mel Brooks, who many Hollywood observers claimed was able to bring out the best of Kahn's comic talents. (Their last collaboration would be 1981's History of the World, Part I.) For Blazing Saddles, she was again nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In the April 2006 issue of Premiere magazine, her performance as Lili von Shtupp in "Saddles" was selected as number 31 on its list of the 100 greatest performances of all time. In 1978 Kahn's comic screen persona reached another peak with Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective, a spoof of Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon directed by Robert Moore. In the film she befuddles Peter Falk's gumshoe with an array of fake identities.

Kahn's roles were primarily comedic rather than dramatic, though the 1970s found her originating roles in two plays that had both elements: 1974's In the Boom Boom Room and 1977's Marco Polo Sings a Solo. After her success in Brooks' films, she played in a number of less successful films in the 1980s (perhaps most memorably as Mrs. White in the 1985 film Clue). She also performed in the movie The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother opposite Gene Wilder.

Late in her career, Kahn returned to the stage, first in Judy Holliday's role in a 1989 revival of Born Yesterday, then as "Dr. Gorgeous" in Wendy Wasserstein's 1993 play The Sisters Rosensweig, a role that garnered her a Tony Award. She played Angela Lansbury's role in a concert revival of Anyone Can Whistle that was released on CD, and also continued to appear in movies, including the holiday farce Mixed Nuts.

In the early 1990's, Kahn recorded a voice for the animated movie The Magic 7. Her most notable role at this time was her recurring role on the sitcom Cosby as Pauline, the eccentric neighbor. She also voiced Gypsy the moth in A Bug's Life. She also received some of the best reviews of her career for her Chekhovian turn in the 1999 independent movie Judy Berlin, her final film.

Illness and death

Kahn was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in early 1999. She underwent treatment and continued to work, even making an appearance on Cosby. However, the disease progressed rapidly, and on December 3, 1999, Kahn died at the age of 57.

She was survived by her husband, John Hansbury (her longtime partner who she had married shortly before her death) as well as her mother, Paula Kahn; brother, Jeffrey Kahn; and niece, Eliza Kahn.

Dear Diary,

Monday: Now home from honeymoon and settled in our new home, it's fun to cook for Bob. Today I made an angel food cake and the recipe said, "Beat 12 eggs separately." Well, I didn't have enough bowls to do that, so I had to borrow enough bowls to beat the eggs in. The cake turned out fine.

Tuesday: We wanted a fruit salad for supper. The recipe said, serve without dressing." So I didn't dress. But, Bob happened to bring a friend home for supper that night. Did they ever look startled when I served the salad.

Wednesday: I decided to serve rice and found a recipe which said, "Wash thoroughly before steaming the rice." So I heated some water and took a bath before steaming the rice. Sounded kinda silly in the middle of the week. I can't say it improved the rice any.

Thursday: Today Bob asked for salad again. I tried a new recipe. It said, "Prepare ingredients, then toss on a bed of lettuce one hour before serving." I hunted all over the garden by my mom's. So I tossed my salad into the bed of lettuce and stood over there one hour so the dog would not take it. Bob came over and asked if I felt all right. I wonder why?

Friday: Today I found an easy recipe for cookies. It said, "Put all ingredients in a bowl and beat it." Beat it I did, right over to my mom's house. There must have been something wrong with the recipe, because when I came back home again it looked the same as when I left it.

Saturday: Bob went shopping today and brought home a chicken. He asked me to dress it for Sunday. I'm sure I don't know how hens dress for Sunday. I never noticed back on the farm, but I found a doll dress and some little shoes. I thought the hen looked real cute. When Bob saw it, I wondered why he counted to 10.

Sunday: Today Bob's folks came to dinner. I wanted to serve roast, but all we had in the icebox, was hamburger. So I put it in the oven and set the controls for roast. Must be the oven, because it still came out hamburger.

Good night, Dear Diary. This has been an exciting week. I am eager for tomorrow to come, so I can try a new recipe on Bob.

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

edgar, we are beginning to learn a lot about Buffy and her relationship with Bob Dylan. Thanks, Texas.

Rex, I do know "More", and thank you for reminding us of that lovely song, Maine.

My Gawd, Bob of Boston. That is one funny diary, and sounds like me when I first got married. Love it, hawk.

We will await our Raggedy's pictures to comment on all the bio's, buddy.

Well, folks, I have made a switch over to tea since I'm out of coffee. Rather refreshing, actually.

Good morning WA2K.

Today's picture gallery: