Joe South sorta reminded me of this song, folks. My friends in Virginia spent a weekend on a yacht where Harry Truman's grand piano sat proudly just begging to be played. Our piano player, G.B., couldn't resist playing this oldie in mock fashion.
Written by J. R. Shannon
Music by John Valentine Eppel as arranged by Frederick Knight Logan
Hush-a-bye ma baby, slumber time is comin' soon.
Rest yo head upon my breast, while mommy hums a tune.
The sandman is calling, where shadows are falling,
While the soft breezes sigh as in days long gone by.
'Way down in Missouri where I heard this melody,
When I was a little child on my mommy's knee.
The old folks were hummin',
Their banjos were strummin',
So sweet and low.
Strum, strum, strum, strum, strum,
Seems I hear those banjos playing once again,
Hum, hum, hum, hum, hum,
That same old plaintive strain.
Hear that mournful melody,
It just haunts you the whole day long.
And you wander in dreams,
Back to Dixie it seems
When you hear that old song.
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hamburger
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Mon 30 Oct, 2006 06:54 pm
bob's entry on ruth gordon sure made me look twice :wink: :
"Gordon was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, to a ship captain" .
wondering where her mother was when ruth gordon was born ?
btw we saw ruth gordon and garson kanin in the "gin game" in toronto ; must have been the late 70's/early 80's - it was a superb performance .
hbg
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hamburger
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Mon 30 Oct, 2006 07:02 pm
i saw in the newspaper that NANA MOUSKOURI has started a farewell tour in canada - well ther be more FAREWELL tours to come ?
we saw her probably about thirty years ago and enjoyed her singing style very much .
this is the only song listed under her name that i could find :
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me...
I once was lost but now I am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.
T'was grace that taught...
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear...
the hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils and snares...
we have already come.
T'was grace that brought us safe thus far...
and grace will lead us home.
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Letty
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Mon 30 Oct, 2006 07:07 pm
hamburger, I thought Ruth was an excellent actress, buddy. I don't know about the discrepancies in Bob's bio, but I got an interesting message from my godchild today about Robert Blake's role in Our Gang Comedies, and I think it was erroneous. Need to check that out, methinks.
Remember this one?
Don't go to bed, with no price on your head - No, no, don't do it.
Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time - Yeah, don't do it.
And keep your eye on the sparrow.
When the going gets narrow.
Don't do it, don't do it.
Where can I go where the cold winds don't blow,
Now. Well, well, well.
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Letty
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Mon 30 Oct, 2006 07:18 pm
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edgarblythe
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 06:08 am
Nana Mouskouri
White Rose Of Athens
(Weiße Rosen aus Athen)
(Roses blanches de Corfou)
(Rosa d'Atene)
(San sfirixis tris fores)
Till the white rose blooms again
You must leave me, leave me lonely
So goodbye my love till then
Till the white rose blooms again
The summer days are ending in the valley
And soon the time will come when we must be apart
But like the rose that comes back with the spring time
You will return to me when spring time comes around
Till the white rose blooms again
You must leave me, leave me lonely
So goodbye my love till then
Till the white rose blooms again
Till the white rose blooms again
You must leave me, leave me lonely
So goodbye my love till then
Till the white rose blooms again
Goodbye till then
Goodbye till then
Goodbye till then
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Letty
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 06:44 am
Good morning, WA2K radio folks. What a lovely day it promises to be.
edgar, that is a great song, buddy. Would that be Athens, Georgia, or Athens, Greece?<smile>
Well, this is the last day of October, folks, so here is a song to usher it out:
I'll sing you this October song,
Oh, there is no song before it.
The words and tune are none of my own,
for my joys and sorrows bore it.
Beside the sea
The brambly briars in the still of evening,
Birds fly out behind the sun,
and with them I'll leavng.
The fallen leaves that jewel the ground,
They know the art of dying,
And leave with joy their glad gold hearts,
In the scarlet shadows lying.
When hunger calls my footsteps home,
The morning follows after,
I swim the seas within my mind,
And the pine-trees laugh green laughter.
I sed to search for happiness,
And I used to follow pleasure,
But I found a door behind my mind,
And that's the greatest treasure.
For rulers like to lay down laws,
And rebels like to break them,
And the poor priests like to walk in chains,
And God likes to forsake the.
I met a man whose name was Time,
And he said, "I must be goin,"
But just how long that was,
I have no way of knowing.
Sometimes I want to murder time,
Sometimes when my heart's aching,
But mostly I just stroll along,
The path that he is taking.
by The Incredible String Band
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bobsmythhawk
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:01 am
John Keats
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Keats (October 31, 1795 - February 23, 1821) was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. During his short life, his work received constant critical attacks from the periodicals of the day, though politics, rather than aesthetics, often dictated those opinions. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, audiences began to appreciate more fully the significance of the cultural change his work both presaged and helped to form. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize Keats' poetry. He often felt himself working in the shadow of past poets, particularly Milton and Spenser, and only towards the end of his life produced his most original and most memorable poems, including a series of odes that remain among the most popular poems in English.
Life
Keats was born in Finsbury Pavement in London, where his father, Thomas Keats, was a hostler. The pub is now called "The John Keats at Moorgate," only a few yards from Moorgate station. Keats lived happily for the first seven years of his life. The beginnings of his troubles occurred in 1804, when his father died from a fractured skull after falling from his horse. His mother, Frances Jennings Keats, remarried soon afterwards, but as quickly left the new husband and moved herself and her four children (a son had died in infancy) to live with Keats' grandmother. There, Keats attended a school that first instilled in him a love of literature. In 1810, however, his mother died of tuberculosis, leaving him and his siblings in the custody of their grandmother.
The grandmother appointed two guardians to take care of her new charges, and these guardians removed Keats from his old school to become a surgeon's apprentice. This continued until 1814, when, after a fight with his master, he left his apprenticeship and became a student at a local hospital. During that year, he devoted more and more of his time to the study of literature. Keats travelled to the Isle of Wight in the spring of 1817, where he spent a week.
He soon found his brother, Tom Keats, entrusted to his care. Tom was suffering, as his mother had, from tuberculosis. Finishing his epic poem "Endymion", Keats left to hike in Scotland and Ireland with his friend Charles Brown. However, he too began to show signs of tuberculosis infection on that trip, and returned prematurely. When he did, he found that Tom's condition had deteriorated, and that Endymion had, as had Poems before it, been the target of much abuse from the critics. In 1818, Tom Keats died from his infection, and John Keats moved again, to live in Brown's house in London. There he met Fanny Brawne, who with her mother had been staying at Brown's house, and he quickly fell in love. However, it was overall an unhappy affair for the poet; Keats' ardour for her seemed to bring him more vexation than comfort. The later (posthumous) publication of their correspondence was to scandalise Victorian society. In the diary of Fanny Brawne was found only one sentence regarding the separation: "Mr Keats has left Hampstead."
Life and Death masks, RomeThis relationship was cut short when, by 1820, Keats began showing worse signs of the disease that had plagued his family. On the suggestion of his doctors, he left the cold airs of London behind and moved to Italy with his friend Joseph Severn. Keats moved into a house on the Spanish Steps, in Rome, where despite attentive care from Severn and Dr. John Clark, the poet's health rapidly deteriorated. He died on February 23, 1821 and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. His last request was followed, and thus he was buried under a tomb stone reading, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." His name does not appear on the stone.
Shelley and Byron erroneously blamed his death on an article published shortly before in the Quarterly Review, with a scathing attack on Keats's Endymion; 'snuffed out by an article' was Byron's phrase. The offending article was long believed to be written by William Gifford, though later shown to be the work of John Wilson Croker.
Career and criticism
His introduction to the work of Edmund Spenser, particularly The Faerie Queene, was to prove a turning point in Keats' development as a poet; it was to inspire Keats to write his first poem, Imitation of Spenser. He befriended Leigh Hunt, a poet and editor who published his first poem in 1816. In 1817, Keats published his first volume of poetry entitled simply Poems. Keats' Poems was not well received, largely due to his connection with the controversial Hunt. Keats produced some of his finest poetry during the spring and summer of 1819; in fact, the period from September 1818 to September 1819 is often referred to among Keats scholars as the Great Year, or the Living Year, because it was during this period that he was most productive and that he wrote his most critically acclaimed works. Several major events have been noted as factors in this increased productivity: namely, the death of his brother Tom, the critical reviews of Endymion, and his meeting of Fanny Brawne. The famous odes he produced during the spring and summer of 1819 include: Ode to Psyche, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on Melancholy, and To Autumn. This series of odes is among the most important poetry ever written in English, ranking with the best of Shakespeare and Milton.
Keats developed his poetic theories, chief among them Negative Capability and The Mansion of Many Apartments, in letters to friends and family. In particular, he stated he wished to be a "chameleon poet" and to resist the "egotistical sublime" of Wordsworth's writing. Oscar Wilde, the aestheticist non pareil was to later write: "[...] who but the supreme and perfect artist could have got from a mere colour a motive so full of marvel: and now I am half enamoured of the paper that touched his hand, and the ink that did his bidding, grown fond of the sweet comeliness of his charactery, for since my childhood I have loved none better than your marvellous kinsman, that godlike boy, the real Adonis of our age[..] In my heaven he walks eternally with Shakespeare and the Greeks."
William Butler Yeats was intrigued by the contrast between the "deliberate happiness" of Keats's poetry and the sadness that characterised his life. He wrote in Ego Dominus Tuus (1915):
I see a schoolboy when I think of him,
With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window,
For certainly he sank into his grave
His senses and his heart unsatisfied,
And made - being poor, ailing and ignorant,
Shut out from all the luxury of the world,
The coarse-bred son of a livery-stable keeper -
Luxuriant song.
Wallace Stevens described Keats as the "Secretary for Porcelain" in Extracts from Addresses to the Academy of Fine Ideas.
Let the Secretary for Porcelain observe
That evil made magic, as in catastrophe,
If neatly glazed, becomes the same as the fruit
Of an emperor, the egg-plant of a prince.
The good is evil's last invention.
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bobsmythhawk
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:08 am
Ethel Waters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Date of birth October 31, 1896
Place of birth Chester, Pennsylvania
Date of death September 1, 1977
Place of death Chatsworth, California
Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 - September 1, 1977) was an Oscar-nominated American blues vocalist and actress. She was the second African American to ever be nominated for an Academy Award.
Waters frequently performed jazz, big band, gospel, and popular music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts. Her best-known recording was her version of the spiritual song "His Eye is on the Sparrow".
Early life
Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, born to a thirteen-year-old mother who had been raped. She was raised in a violent, impoverished Philadelphia ward. Even though she was eventually adopted by her grandmother, she never lived in the same place for more than 15 months.
Career
Waters with Count Basie and his band, in the film Stage Door Canteen (1943)Waters obtained her first Harlem club job around 1919 at Edmond's Cellar, a club that had a black patronage. Along with Fletcher Henderson, with the sponsorship of Black Swan Records, she toured with the Black Swan Dance Masters. Waters commented that Henderson tended to perform in a more classical style than she would prefer, often lacking "the damn-it-to-hell bass". According to Waters, she influenced him to practice in a "real jazz" style. She recorded for Columbia Records in 1925; this recording was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998.
During the 1920s, she performed and/or was recorded with the ensembles of Will Marion Cook, Lovie Austin. As her career continued, she evolved toward being a blues and Broadway singer performing with artists such as Duke Ellington.
She had the starring role as Petunia in 1943's Cabin in the Sky, the first "all-Black" Hollywood musical, directed by Vincente Minnelli. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award in 1949 for the film Pinky. In 1950, she won the New York Drama Critics Award for her performance opposite Julie Harris in the play The Member of the Wedding.
In 1950, Waters starred in the TV series Beulah but quit after complaining that the scripts were portraying African-Americans as "degregading". Waters worked only sporadically in following years.
Death
She died in 1977 at the age of 80. The cause of death was heart disease. Waters had been staying in a Chatsworth, California home of a young couple caring for her, and died at their home.
Recognition and other achievements
Waters wrote and published two autobiographies, His Eye Is on the Sparrow (1950) and To Me It's Wonderful (1972).
She was posthumously recognized in 1984 by the Gospel Music Association where her name was placed in its Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
Private life
Ethel Waters is the great-aunt of Dance music artist Crystal Waters.
In the period before her death at age 80 in Los Angeles, California, she toured with The Reverend Billy Graham, despite the fact that she was a Catholic and he was a Protestant.
Awards and recognitions
Academy Award, Best Supporting Actress nomination in 1949
Gospel Music Hall of Fame, 1984
Grammy Hall of Fame Award, 1998
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bobsmythhawk
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:15 am
Dale Evans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dale Evans was the stage name of Frances Octavia Smith (October 31, 1912-February 7, 2001), a writer, movie star, and singer-songwriter. She was the wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers.
Born Lucille Wood Smith in Uvalde, Texas, her name was changed in infancy to Frances Octavia Smith. She had a tumultuous early life, eloping at age 14 with her first husband Thomas F. Fox. She bore one son, Thomas F. Fox, Jr. when she was 15 years old. Divorced in 1929 at 17, she married August Wayne Johns that same year, a union that lasted until their divorce in 1933. She took the name Dale Evans in the early 1930s to promote her singing career. She then married her accompanist and arranger Robert Dale Butts in 1935.
After beginning her career singing at the radio station where she was employed as a secretary, Evans had a productive career as a jazz, swing, and big band singer that led to a screen test and contract with 20th Century Fox studios. During her time at 20th Century Fox, the studio promoted her as the unmarried supporter of her teenage "brother" Tommy (actually her son Tom Fox, Jr.). This deception continued through her divorce from Butts in 1945, and her development as a cowgirl co-star to Roy Rogers at Republic studios.
Evans married Roy Rogers on New Year's Eve, 1946. Rogers ended the deception regarding Tommy. Rogers and Evans were a team on- and off-screen from 1946 until Rogers' death in 1998. Together they had one child, Robin Elizabeth, who died of complications of Down's Syndrome shortly before her second birthday. Her life inspired Evans to write her bestseller Angel Unaware. Evans went on to write a number of religious and inspirational books.
From 1951 to 1957, Dale Evans and her husband starred in the highly successful television series The Roy Rogers Show, in which they continued their cowboy/cowgirl roles, with her riding her trusty buckskin horse, Buttermilk. In addition to her successful TV shows, over 30 movies, and 200 songs, Evans wrote the well known songs "Happy Trails" and "The Bible Tells Me So".
In the 1970s, Evans recorded several solo albums of religious music. The 1980s saw Roy and Dale introducing their films weekly on The Nashville Network. In the 1990s, Dale hosted her own religious television program.
For her contribution to radio, Dale Evans has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6638 Hollywood Blvd. She received a second star at 1737 Vine St. for her contribution to the television industry. In 1976, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
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bobsmythhawk
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:20 am
Barbara Bel Geddes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born October 31, 1922
New York, New York
Died August 8, 2005
Northeast Harbor, Maine
Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 New York City - August 8, 2005 Northeast Harbor, Maine) was an Oscar-nominated American actress, best known for her role on the hit CBS drama, Dallas, as its motherly matriarch, Miss Ellie Ewing.
Career
Bel Geddes was the daughter of Helen Belle Sneider and industrial architect Norman Bel Geddes. She began as a stage actress at the age of 18. In 1952, she received the prestigious Woman of the Year Award by Hasty Pudding Theatricals USA, America's oldest theater company. Her most notable stage performances were originating the role of Maggie in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway in 1956, and the title role in the long-running Jean Kerr comedy Mary, Mary in 1961, both of which earned her Tony Award nominations.
Her film career began opposite Henry Fonda with 1947's The Long Night. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for I Remember Mama (1948). However, ill health and a House Unamerican Activities Committee investigation essentially ended her film career for some time. Her career restarted when Alfred Hitchcock cast her in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (including "Lamb to the Slaughter," [from a story by Roald Dahl] the seminal episode when she plays a housewife who kills her husband by bludgeoning him with a leg of lamb, then feeds the instrument of death to the investigating cops), as well as an important supporting role in the movie Vertigo (1958) as James Stewart's ex-girlfriend Midge Wood.
In 1978, with her savings nearly depleted, Barbara signed on as the first cast member, family matriarch Miss Ellie Ewing on CBS's new prime time soap opera, Dallas, a role that would bring her international recognition among modern-day audiences. She played on the series from 1978 to 1990 and remains the only night-time soap opera actress to win an Emmy award (in 1980) for best lead actress in a drama series. When she underwent heart surgery in March 1984, Donna Reed replaced her for the 1984-1985 season. One storyline in 'Dallas' dealt with Miss Ellie battling breast cancer and undergoing a mastectomy, an experience Bel Geddes had undergone in real life in the early 70s.
In 1993, she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame (located in the Gershwin Theatre in New York), joining her father, stage and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes.
She was the author of two children's books, I Like to Be Me (1963) and So Do I (1972), as well as the creator of a popular line of greeting cards.
Private life
Bel Geddes married Carl Schreuer in 1944; they had a daughter, Susan. They divorced in 1951; she married film director Windsor Lewis later that year. When he became ill in 1966, she shelved her career to care for him. He died in 1972.
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bobsmythhawk
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:25 am
Lee Grant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lee GrantLee Grant (October 31, 1927) is an Academy Award-winning American theater, film and television actress, and film director who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.
Early life
Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal in New York City to Eastern European Jewish immigrants.
She performed as a ballerina with the New York Metropolitan Opera at the age of four, and during her childhood studied dance and acting.
She established herself as a dramatic actress on Broadway while a teenager and was praised for her role as a shoplifter in the play Detective Story.
Career
Grant made her film debut in the movie version of Detective Story and received her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination, and won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Called before the House Un-American Activities Committee to testify against her husband, the playwright Arnold Manoff, the father of her only child, her daughter, actress Dinah Manoff, Grant refused to testify and was ultimately blacklisted. She continued to work in theater and resumed her film career in the early 1960s, and also appeared in the television series Peyton Place, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Drama.
She received Academy Award nominations for The Landlord (1970), and Voyage of the Damned (1977). She won an Oscar for Shampoo (1975). She has also directed several documentary films, including Down and Out in America (1986) which won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. In recent years she has directed a series of Intimate Portrait episodes (for Lifetime Television) that celebrate a diverse range of accomplished women.
She appeared as a cunning lawyer/murderess on an episode of Columbo. She also had her own sitcom, a series entitled Fay (1975), but it was not successful. Grant was vocal in assigning blame for the failure of the series, which was about the travails of a mature, sexually active woman, which may have turned off some viewers.
Grant also guest starred on Empty Nest, a TV series in which her daughter Dinah Manoff was a regular.
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bobsmythhawk
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:30 am
Cleo Moore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cleouna Moore (October 31, 1928 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana - October 25, 1973) was a blonde bombshell of 1950's Hollywood films.
Moore received a ton of publicity but most of her movies were less than memorable. Nevertheless, she became a "name" with her fairly popular B movies during the era albeit not a major star. She made her film debut in 1948 movie serial Congo Bill. She had stints as a starlet ar Warner Bros. in 1950 and RKO Radio Pictures in 1950-52 before signing with Columbia Pictures in 1952. She first gained attention as a doomed gun moll on Nicholas Ray's film noir classic On Dangerous Ground in 1951.
Moore began starring in films in 1952. Her best-known films include One Girl's Confession (1953), Women's Prison (1955), Hold Back Tomorrow (1955), Over-exposed (1956) and Hit and Run (1957). She was often starred in films directed by actor/director Hugo Haas and starred opposite John Agar, Richard Crenna, Vince Edwards, and Robert Ryan among other actors. In the mid 1950's Columbia considered starring Moore in a film biography on Jean Harlow's life but the project never got off the ground. Moore made headlines with several publicity stunts notably a five minute kiss on live Chicago television in 1954 and her tongue-in-cheek pledge to one day run for Governor of Louisiana, having once been married to the youngest son of Huey Long, Palmer. Many sources have incorrectly stated that she did run for Governor.
Moore found success as a businesswoman as a real estate developer after her screen career ended in the late 1950's. She had been out of the limelight for many years when she died from a heart attack. Today her bad girl movies have a cult following and photos and memorabilia on Moore is often as coveted as that of her more famous contemporaries Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.
Quotes
I've been in so many women's prison movies I should get time off for good behavior.
I've found that to become a star you must spend a few years being Miss Ping Pong.
Men are all alike. Their faces are only different so you can tell them apart.
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bobsmythhawk
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:39 am
Michael Landon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Date of birth October 31, 1936
Place of birth Forest Hills, New York
Date of death July 1, 1991
Place of death Malibu, California
Notable roles Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza
Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie
Jonathan Smith on Highway to Heaven
Michael Landon (October 31, 1936 - July 1, 1991) was an American actor, producer and director who starred in three popular NBC TV series that spanned three decades. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza (1959-1973), Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie (1974-1982), and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven (1984-1989). He also hosted the annual long-running coverage of the "Tournament of Roses Parade" with Kelly Lange, also on NBC.
Biography
Early life
Landon was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz in the New York City borough in the Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills, New York. Landon's father, Eli Maurice Orowitz, was a Jewish American actor and movie theater manager, and his mother, Kathleen Ignatius O'Neill, was an Irish American Catholic dancer and comedienne. Eugene was the Orowitz' second child; his sister, Evelyn, was born three years earlier. In 1941, when Orowitz was 4 years old, he and his family moved to Collingswood, New Jersey. In Collingswood High School, he was not a good student, and felt estranged from his family [citation needed]. By the time Orowitz was a senior in high school, he was elected class president. His IQ was 159, yet he was the third-to-last student in his graduating class in 1954. He took on a couple of odd jobs working as a gas station attendant and at a warehouse.
In high school, he excelled at track and had a special talent for javelin. He held the national record for the longest throw by any high school athlete at the time. This earned him an athletic scholarship to USC. Unfortunately, he later tore a ligament in his shoulder, which made him unable to participate in further javelin throwing competitions, and he stopped competing.
He changed his name from Eugene Orowitz to Michael Landon after he decided to launch his acting career, as he did not feel that his given name was appropriate for an actor. It is believed that he chose the stage name by picking it out of a Los Angeles phone book.
Early career
After changing his last name, Landon became one of the more popular and enduring young actors of the late 1950s, making his first appearance in The Mystery of Casper Hauser. This part led to other roles, often as a moody, rebellious youth such as: Crossroads, The Rifleman, The Adventures of Jim Bowie, Wire Service, Telephone Time, General Electric Theater, The Court of Last Resort, The Tales of Wells Fargo, Johnny Risk, among many others.
In 1959, at age 22, Landon had his first starring TV role as Little Joe Cartwright on Bonanza, one the first TV series to be in color. Also starring on the show were Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, and Dan Blocker. Landon's character was the cocky, mischievous youngest brother of the Cartwright Family. The character evolved to be a "ladies' man" and Landon became an early TV sex symbol, often appearing shirtless on the show. During Bonanza's first season, it was a hit, and in its sixth season (1964-1965), the show topped the Nielsen Ratings, and remainined number one for three years.
Landon often performed his own stunts. In 1968, he was also permitted to write and direct episodes. In 1972, after the season finale, his co-star and best friend Dan Blocker died. Landon had originally written the 14th season's two hour premiere episode based on the marriage of Blocker's character Hoss. Landon, too grieved to do a memorial episode to honor his friend, instead cast himself in the groom's role of his already finished script. During its final season in 1973, Bonanza declined in the ratings and was cancelled that same year. Landon appeared in all 14 seasons of Bonanza.
Later career
The year after Bonanza was cancelled, Landon went on to star in the pilot of yet another successful western television series called Little House on the Prairie, again for NBC. The show was taken from a 1935 book that was published by Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose character in the show was played by a then-unknown actress, Melissa Gilbert. In addition to Gilbert, Melissa Sue Anderson played Mary Ingalls, the oldest daughter in the Ingalls family, and Karen Grassle also starred as Charles's wife, Caroline Ingalls. Landon served as executive producer, writer, and director of the show, making him one of the series' driving forces. The show, a success in its first season, emphasized family values and relationships. Little House became Landon's second longest running series.
Fatherhood on screen and off led him to team up with Oscar-winner Paul Newman, and First Lady Nancy Reagan, for a drug abuse foundation called, Just Say No. The entire cast shared a close bond with Landon, particularly Gilbert, who spent most of the weekends visiting Landon's real-life family, and five years later in 1981, when Gilbert was only 17, she even took Michael Landon Jr. to the prom. Landon's real-life daughter appeared as a plague victim in one episode and later as a recurring character.
Tremendously popular with viewers, the show was nominated for several Emmys and Golden Globes. After eight seasons, Little House was retooled by NBC in 1982. That same year, Landon produced and directed Little House: A New Beginning, which focused on the Wilder family and the Walnut Grove community. The series lasted one year. Melissa Gilbert, named her son, Michael Garrett Boxleitner (1995), after Landon. After the series ended, Gilbert stayed connected with Landon for the next 8 years, until Landon's own death.
After producing both the Father Murphy TV series and a movie, Sam's Son, Landon went on to star in another successful television series. On Highway to Heaven, he played Jonathan Smith, a probationary guardian angel whose job was to help people to earn his angel wings. His co-star on the show was Victor French (who previously co-starred on Landon's Little House on the Prairie). He played an ex-cop, Mark Gordon. NBC didn't feel the show had a prayer, but it too proved to be another hit for Landon. This was also the first religious fantasy drama series, starting a specialized subgenre which included later shows such as Touched by an Angel. On Highway, Landon served as executive producer, writer and director of the show. Though Landon felt that he liked writing the best, and acting the least, he continued to act because actors get more money than writers [citation needed].
By 1985, prior to hiring his son Michael Landon Jr. as the director, he also brought real-life cancer patients and disabled people to the set. His decision to work with disabled people led him to hire a couple of adults with disabilities to write episodes for Highway. He also revamped the classic 1957 film, I Was a Teenage Werewolf. By its fifth season, Highway took a nose dive in the ratings, and in June, co-star Victor French died of lung cancer. Before the series cancellation in 1989, he even invited his youngest daughter Jennifer Landon for the final episode.
Personal life
Landon was married three times.
Dodie Levy-Fraser (married in December 1956/divorced in December 1962)
Mark (adopted)
Josh in 1960 (adopted)
(Marjorie) Lynn Noe (married on January 12, 1963/divorced 1982)
Leslie was born:October 10, 1962
Michael
Shawna
Christopher (Landon at one point attempted to adopt Lynn's daughter, Cheryl Pontrelli, from her first marriage, but the girl's birth father wouldn't allow it.)
Cindy Clerico (married in February 1983)
Jennifer Landon was born in 1983. (Jennifer is now an Emmy-winning actress starring as Gwen Norbeck Munson on the soap opera As the World Turns.)
Sean was born in 1986
What followed was a very bitter and public divorce in 1982 which cost Landon more than US$26 million. Many fans felt betrayed by Landon, who had always played morally upstanding characters on television. Defending himself in interviews, Landon replied, "Nobody's perfect. Not Charles Ingalls. Not Michael Landon."
In 1956, Landon lost his father to a massive heart attack. In 1973, his eldest daughter, Cheryl was involved in a serious car accident. She was hospitalized in a coma. Three years later in 1976, Cheryl suffered bouts of depression which led to an addiction to painkillers. In 1981, Landon's mother, Peggy O' Neill, died.
Landon's shows were all on NBC, but after ending Highway, he moved to CBS and in 1991 starred in a two hour pilot called Us. This was meant to be another series for Landon, but on April 5, he was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, an inoperable pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver and lymph nodes. Doctors believe Landon's heavy alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking - four packs a day - contributed to this cancer.
On May 9, 1991, he appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson to speak of his illness, promising to fight the cancer and asking fans to pray for him. However, almost 2 months later, on July 1, 1991, Landon died in Malibu, California, aged 54.
He was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. Cindy and Michael's family were joined by 500 other mourners including former President Ronald Reagan, with whom Michael had once chopped wood, and his wife Nancy. Merlin Olsen, Ernest Borgnine, Brian Keith and many of Michael's costars, such as Melissa Gilbert and Melissa Sue Anderson, were present. Although Michael's first wife, Dodie, accompanied by her two sons were present, his second wife, Lynn, was absent.
After his death, Landon was again on the covers of weekly tabloids when it was revealed that he had done some last-minute changing to his will. Rather than giving his nine children an equal inheritance, he chose to give a larger portion to his and Cindy's two children.
For his contribution to the television industry, Michael Landon has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 N. Vine Street. In 1998, he was inducted posthumously into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Quotes
Michael about his times with his father: "I felt my father's presence with me, enlightening my memories, helping me to commit to paper the feelings I had. . . I really heard my father speaking to me from the other dimension, filling my mind with just the right words. The story came so fast and was so right. In three days, the script was complete." (Source: IMDB.com)
Michael: "I was grown before I realized that other mothers didn't put their heads in the oven." (Source: IMDB.com)
Michael: "Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows." (Source: IMDB.com)
Michael encouraging others to watch clean TV: "I want people to laugh and cry, not just sit and stare at the TV. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think viewers are hungry for shows in which people say something meaningful." (Source: IMDB.com)
Michael's mother, Peggy O'Neill, talked about his irresponsible behavior: "I don't know where he lives. I never bother him because he doesn't like me asking questions. He's quite secretive. He keeps me at a distance. I don't even have his phone number. Why should I? I'm not very important. I'm just his mother." (Source: IMDB.com)
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bobsmythhawk
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:45 am
John Candy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Candy
Birth name John Franklin Candy
Date of birth October 31, 1950
Place of birth Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Date of death March 4, 1994
Place of death Durango, Mexico
John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 - March 4, 1994) was a Canadian comedian and actor. Candy rose to fame as a member of the Toronto branch of The Second City, often playing lovable losers and characters with bad luck but big hearts. His television and film roles were mostly comedic, such as his memorable characters in Stripes, The Blues Brothers, Uncle Buck, and Planes, Trains & Automobiles, but he also played serious characters in films like JFK and Cool Runnings. Candy died of a massive heart attack in 1994.
Early life and career
Candy was born in Newmarket, Ontario and raised in East York, Ontario, a former suburb of Toronto, Ontario. He was the younger of two sons. His father, Sidney Candy, was of Scottish descent, and his mother Evangeline was of mixed Scottish and Lithuanian descent. His father died quite young from a heart attack. He attended the Neil McNeil Catholic High School, an all-boys, public, Catholic school in Toronto, where he played football.
Candy's first movie role was in Class of '44 in 1973, in which he made a small uncredited appearance. In 1976, Candy played a supporting role (with Rick Moranis) on Peter Gzowski's short-lived, late-night television talk show, Ninety Minutes Live. That same year, as a member of Toronto's branch of The Second City, he gained wide North American popularity, which grew when he became a cast member on the influential Toronto-based comedy-variety show Second City Television (SCTV). NBC picked the show up in 1981 and it quickly became a fan favorite.
1980s
Among Candy's memorable characterizations for SCTV were unscrupulous street-beat tv personality Johnny LaRue, 3-D horror auteur Doctor Tongue, sycophantic and easily amused talk-show sidekick William B. Williams, and quiescent Melonville Mayor Tommy Shanks. Other characters included cheerful Leutonian clarinetist Yosh Shmenge, who was half of the Happy Wanderers and the subject of the mockumentary The Last Polka, folksy fishin' musician Gil Fischer, handsome if accent-challenged TV actor Steve Roman, hapless children's entertainer Mr. Messenger, corrupt soap opera doctor William Wainwright and smut merchant Harry, "the Guy With the Snake on His Face".
Mimicry was one of Candy's talents, which he used often at SCTV. Celebrities impersonated by Candy include Jerry Mathers, Divine (Glen Milstead), Orson Welles, Julia Child, Richard Burton, Darryl Sittler, Luciano Pavarotti, Jimmy the Greek, Tip O'Neill, Don Rickles, Curly Howard, Merlin Olsen, Jackie Gleason, Tom Selleck, Gordon Pinsent, Ed Asner, Doug McGrath, and Hervé Villechaize.
By 1980, Candy was appearing in mainstream films such as 1941 and The Blues Brothers. Encouraged by his early success, Candy went on to star in such films as Stripes, Splash, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, The Great Outdoors, Spaceballs, Brewster's Millions, Who's Harry Crumb?, and Uncle Buck. He also had a part as a maniacal disc jockey in the comic musical film Little Shop of Horrors.
Candy typically played characters who, although they lived somewhat seedy lives, often had their hearts in the right place. Candy was lauded by some as a true comic genius because of his ability to portray an "everyman" with whom the audience could identify.
1990s
Candy was very popular in the 1980s, but in the early 1990s he appeared in a string of critical and commercial failures such as Nothing But Trouble, Delirious and Once Upon A Crime. He also produced and starred in a short-lived Saturday morning animated series on ABC entitled Camp Candy in 1989. The show was set in a fictional summer camp run by Candy, featured his two children in supporting roles, and also spawned a brief comic book series published by Marvel Comics' Star Comics imprint.
After the mediocre success of those films, Candy was widely regarded as a spent force. Soon, however, he reinvigorated his acting career by broadening his range. Candy moved into occasional dramatic roles by appearing in JFK, in which he gave a convincing performance as a shady fatcat lawyer from the south, and took semi-dramatic roles in Only the Lonely and Cool Runnings, in which he played a disgraced former Olympic athlete training four Jamaicans in bobsledding for the 1988 Winter Olympics. Candy received positive reviews for these roles.
In 1991, Bruce McNall, Wayne Gretzky, and Candy became co-owners of the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts. The celebrity ownership group attracted a lot of attention in Canada and the team spent a significant amount of money, even signing some highly-touted National Football League players.
Candy's final completed movie was Canadian Bacon, a satirical comedy by Michael Moore in which America started a war with Canada. Candy played the American sheriff Bud Boomer who led the "attack" against Canada (which is ironic considering his Canadian heritage). Its release was delayed because Moore changed the ending of the film following Candy's death.[1]
Candy also made an appearance in the Fox TV movie Hostage For a Day, starring alongside George Wendt.
Death
Candy died of a massive heart attack in his sleep during location filming in Durango, Mexico, for the western comedy film Wagons East. Doctors found that Candy's fatal heart attack had been the result of a complete blockage of one of his coronary arteries. He was 43 years old.
Candy quit smoking prior to his death and was losing weight - fellow cast and crew on Wagons East even said he looked healthier than ever. Candy was warned by doctors several times to lose weight due to a genetic predisposition to heart disease, from which his father had died at the age of 35. Candy refused, and reportedly stated that his portly frame was what gave him his film roles. Despite this, there was public evidence that Candy was self-conscious about his appearance when, a few years before his death, he cancelled his appearance as host of an awards show for the CBC because the advertising campaign for the special poked fun at his weight.
Candy was survived by his widow, Rosemary Margaret (Hoban), whom he married in 1979, and their two children, Jennifer and Christopher. His funeral Mass was held at St. Michael's Cathedral, Toronto and was broadcast live across Canada. Candy is interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Legacy
Wagons East was completed using a body double in Candy's place. Released in the summer of 1994, critics and audiences alike denounced the film as one of the worst Candy ever made and an unworthy climax to his career. Candy recorded a voice for the TV film The Magic 7 in the early 1990s, as did the late Madeline Kahn. The film remained in production for years due to animation difficulties and production delays, and eventually it was shelved. Plans were made to launch the film sometime in 2005 or 2006, but to date it has not been released.
Candy was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. In May 2006, Candy became one of the first four entertainers ever honoured by Canada Post by being featured on a postage stamp.
The band Ween's fourth studio album, Chocolate and Cheese (1994) is dedicated in loving memory to John Candy.
Blues Brothers 2000 is dedicated to three people including Candy, who played a major role in the original Blues Brothers.
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bobsmythhawk
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:50 am
MARRIAGE IS...
Marriage is a ceremony that turns your dreamboat into a barge.
Marriage is a mutual relationship if both parties know when to be mute.
Marriage is a rest period between romances.
Marriage is a trip between Niagara Falls and Reno.
Marriage is an institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
Marriage is bliss. Ignorance is bliss. Ergo...
Marriage is like a hot bath. Once you get used to it, it's not so hot.
Marriage is like a violin. After the music is over, you still have the strings.
Marriage is mind over matter; if the husband doesn't mind, it doesn't matter
Marriage is not a word; it is a sentence.
Marriage is the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.
Marriage is the mourning after the knot before.
Marriage is the only sport in which the trapped animal has to buy the license.
Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy.
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
Marriage is when a man and woman become as one;
the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.
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Letty
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 07:57 am
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Raggedyaggie
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 12:37 pm
Good afternoon WA2K.
Lots of birthday pictures today:
0 Replies
Letty
1
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 01:22 pm
Hey, PA. Love those photo's, Raggedy. I'm certain that most of our listeners recognize the celeb's.
Hmmm. Ethel and Dale and Barbara? Lee and Cleo(don't know her)and Michael, and last, but certainly not least is John.
I recall John Candy's movie "The Great Outdoors". I especially like the scene where he broke down the door saying, "Bear; Big bear."
I am not certain, folks, but I think Michael Landon might have sung "Careless Love", but I am not certain. Anyway, he died of pancreatic cancer just like my friend, Bill.
Well, since Cleo was born in Baton Rouge, here's a song for her from Garth Brooks:
I spent last night in the arms
Of a girl in Louisiana
And though I'm out on the highway
My thoughts are still with her
Such a strange combination of a woman and a child
Such a strange situation stoppin' every hundred miles
Callin' Baton Rouge
A replay of last night's events
Roll through my mind
Except a scene or two
Erased by sweet red wine
And I see a truck stop sign ahead
So I change lanes
I need a cup of coffee
And a couple dollars change
Callin' Baton Rouge
Operator won't you put me on through
I gotta' send my love down to Baton Rouge
Hurry up won't you put her on the line
I gotta' talk to the girl just one more time
Hello Samantha dear, I hope you're feelin' fine
And it won't be long until I'm with you all the time
But until then I'll spend my money up right down to my last dime
Callin' Baton Rouge
Operator won't you put me on through
I gotta' send my love down to Baton Rouge
Hurry up won't you put her on the line
I gotta' talk to the girl just one more time
Callin' Baton Rouge
Sweet Baton Rouge, my Baton Rouge
0 Replies
Tryagain
1
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Tue 31 Oct, 2006 04:50 pm
Good morning, sure Baton Rouge is sweet, but have you been to the
City of New Orleans
Nelson Willie Lyrics
Riding on the City of New Orleans,
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin' trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.
CHORUS:
Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.
Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.
Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.
CHORUS
Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.
Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.