hbg, there's nothing we like better than good old funseeking singing Canadians. Thanks for the cryptic song by Leonard. I have learned to love that man.
Another thanks for pouring oil on troubled waters, buddy.
Don't ask, folks, 'cause I don't know. It's another Aha moment for me tonight.
Poem for the evening.
Aaron Stark
Withal a meagre man was Aaron Stark, --
Cursed and unkempt, shrewd, shrivelled, and morose.
A miser was he, with a miser's nose,
And eyes like little dollars in the dark.
His thin, pinched mouth was nothing but a mark;
And when he spoke there came like sullen blows
Through scattered fangs a few snarled words and close,
As if a cur were chary of its bark.
Glad for the murmur of his hard renown,
Year after year he shambled through the town, --
A loveless exile moving with a staff;
And oftentimes there crept into his ears
A sound of alien pity, touched with tears, --
And then (and only then) did Aaron laugh.
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Queen victoria,
My father and all his tobacco loved you,
I love you too in all your forms,
The slim and lovely virgin floating among german beer,
The mean governess of the huge pink maps,
The solitary mourner of a prince.
Queen victoria,
I am cold and rainy,
I am dirty as a glass roof in a train station,
I feel like an empty cast iron exhibition,
I want ornaments on everything,
Because my love, she gone with other boys.
Queen victoria,
Do you have a punishment under the white lace,
Will you be short with her, will you make her read those little bibles,
Will you spank her with a mechanical corset.
I want her pure as power, I want her skin slightly musty with petticoats
Will you wash the easy bidet out of her head?
Queen victoria,
Im not much nourished by modern love,
Will you come into my life
With your sorrow and your black carriages,
And your perfect
Memories.
Queen victoria,
The twentieth century belongs to you and me.
Let us be two severe giants not less lonely for our partnership,
Who discolour test tubes in the halls of science,
Who turn up unwelcome at every worlds fair,
Heavy with proverbs and corrections,
Confusing the star-dazed tourists
With our incomparable sense of loss.
sincerely, l cohen
and now, the parody by dj's favorite, Allan Sherman.
(sung to the tune of Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey)
Wont You Come Home Disraeli lyrics
When Benjamin Disraeli was Prime Minister of England,
And good old Queen Victoria was the Queen,
Whenever she would need him for official palace business,
Disraeli, he was nowhere to be seen.
She went down to 10 Downing Street,
The doorbell there she rang,
And when there was no answer,
This is what the good Queen sang:
Won't you come home, Disraeli. Won't you come home.
Come home to Queen Victoria.
Don't leave that House of Commons, and that House of Lords.
Just sittin' waitin' for ya.
I'm gettin' awful lomesome, 'cause all I do
Is sit here reading Ethan Frome.
Now don't leave me flat,
The key to the palace is under the mat.
Disraeli, won't you please come home.
Won't you come home, Disraeli. Won't you come home.
Come home to Queen Victoria.
Don't leave that House of Commons, and that House of Lords.
Just sittin' waitin' for ya.
You claim official business took you away
To Egypt, and Bombay, and Rome.
Well, I ain't so certain,
'Cause you're the Nineteenth Century Richard Burton,
Disraeli, won't you please (I miss you, Dizzy)
Disraeli, won't you please,
Disraeli, won't you please,
Disraeli, won't you please come home.
Hugh O'Brian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hugh O'BrianHugh O'Brian (born April 19, 1925) is an American actor.
Born Hugh Charles Krampe in Rochester, New York, he is best known for his starring role as Wyatt Earp in the television series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp that ran from 1955 to 1961.
O'Brian also appeared regularly on other television programs in the 1960s. For example, he was a guest panelist on the popular Sunday Night CBS-TV program, What's My Line? and later served as a mystery guest three times.
He served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a drill instructor during World War II. At age 17, he was the youngest drill instructor in the corps.
For his contribution to the television industry, Hugh O'Brian has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6613-1/2 Hollywood Blvd. In 1992, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. O'Brian had a cameo appearance in the movie Twins.
Hugh O'Brian has dedicated much of his life to the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY). HOBY is a non-profit youth leadership development program that empowers 10,000 sophomores annually through its over 70 leadership programs in all 50 states and 8 countries. Since its inception in 1958, over 355,000 young people have been inspired by HOBY.
One high school sophomore from every high school in the United States, referred to as an "ambassador," is welcome to attend a state or regional HOBY seminar. From each of those seminars, one boy and one girl are selected to attend the World Leadership Congress.
The concept for HOBY was inspired in 1958 by a nine-day visit Hugh O'Brian had with famed humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Africa. Dr. Schweitzer believed "the most important thing in education is to teach young people to think for themselves."
On June 25, 2006, at 81, he married for the first time, to Virginia Barber, 54, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The Rev. Robert Schuller, pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, officiated, and the couple was serenaded by close friend Debbie Reynolds. [1]
Hugh O'Brian's message to young people is "Freedom to Choose" Here is his brief speech on this topic: "I do NOT believe we are all born equal. Created equal in the eyes of God, yes, but physical and emotional differences, parental guidelines, varying environments, being in the right place at the right time, all play a role in enhancing or limiting an individual's development. But I DO believe every man and woman, if given the opportunity and encouragement to recognize their potential, regardless of background, has the freedom to choose in our world. Will an individual be a taker or a giver in life? Will that person be satisfied merely to exist or seek a meaningful purpose? Will he or she dare to dream the impossible dream?
I believe every person is created as the steward of his or her own destiny with great power for a specific purpose, to share with others, through service, a reverence for life in a spirit of love."
Dick Sargent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Richard Cox
Born April 19, 1930
Carmel, California, United States
Died July 8, 1994 (age 64)
Los Angeles, California, United States
Other name(s) Richard Sargent
Years active ca. 1953-1993
Spouse(s) Albert Williams (1986-1994)
Fannie Flagg
Notable roles Darrin Stephens #2 in Bewitched
Dick Sargent (April 19, 1930 - July 8, 1994) was born Richard Cox in Carmel, California.
He was an American actor probably best remembered as "the second Darrin Stephens" on the hit television series Bewitched, although Sargent had been appearing in films since his debut in 1956. When Dick York was forced to leave Bewitched series due to health problems, Sargent stepped into the role. He had first been offered the role in 1964 but was under contract to Universal Studios and unable to accept it. By 1969, however, he was free and played Darrin until the show ended in 1972.
Sargent continued to work regularly in film and made numerous guest appearances on various TV shows. In the mid-eighties, he played the role of Richard Preston, the widowed father, in the syndicated sitcom Down to Earth.
Later in life, he came out as gay, and supported gay rights issues. Previously he covered his orientation to men by marrying lesbian actor Fannie Flagg. He lived with his life partner, Albert Williams until his death. Sargent and his former co-star Elizabeth Montgomery, with whom he remained good friends, were Grand Marshals of the Los Angeles Gay Pride parade in June 1992. He was one of three known gay actors on the series, which includes Paul Lynde and Diane Murphy.
Sargent died shortly thereafter from prostate cancer in Los Angeles in 1994. He was close friends with Dobie Gillis actress Sheila James, MacMillian and Wife actress Nancy Walker and painter Atkins Barone.
Jayne Mansfield
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birthplace Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Birthdate April 19, 1933
Date of death June 29, 1967 (aged 34)
Measurements 40D - 21 - 36
Height 5 ft 6 in
Weight Unknown
Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer, April 19, 1933?-29 June 1967) was an American actress and Playboy centerfold.
One of the leading sex symbols of the 1950s, like Marilyn Monroe, Mansfield starred in several popular Hollywood films that emphasized her platinum-blonde hair, dramatic hourglass figure, and cleavage-revealing costumes. She was a recipient of a Golden Globe Award and a Theatre World Award for two early screen and stage performances.
Though Mansfield appeared in several popular Hollywood films, her status in the industry proved fleeting, and she was quickly relegated to low-budget melodramas and comedies. Negative publicity and poor business decisions eventually forced her into regional nightclub appearances before her death in an automobile accident at the age of 34.
Early life
Jayne Mansfield, of German and English ancestry, was the only child of Herbert William and Vera (nee Jeffrey) Palmer.[1] She was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania but spent her early childhood in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. When she was three years old her father, a lawyer who was in practice with future New Jersey governor Robert B. Meyner, died of a heart attack while driving in a car with his wife and daughter. After his death her mother worked as a school teacher and in 1939, when Vera Palmer remarried, the family moved to Dallas, Texas. Jayne's desire to become an actress developed at an early age. After high school she studied drama and physics at Southern Methodist University.
In 1950, at age 16, Jayne married Paul Mansfield. Her acting aspirations were temporarily put on hold with the birth of her first child, Jayne Marie Mansfield, on November 8, 1950. She juggled motherhood and classes at the University of Texas at Austin, then spent a year at Camp Gordon, Georgia during her husband's service in the United States Army. She attended UCLA during the summer of 1953 then went back to Texas for fall quarter at Southern Methodist University. In Dallas she became a student of actor Baruch Lumet, father of director Sidney Lumet and founder of the Dallas Institute of the Performing Arts. On October 22, 1953, she first appeared on stage in a production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Jayne won several beauty contests while living in Texas; these included Miss Photoflash, Miss Magnesium Lamp and Miss Fire Prevention. The one title she turned down was Miss Roquefort Cheese because she said it "just didn't sound right."[citation needed]
Acting career and celebrity
Jayne's husband at the time, Paul Mansfield, hoped the birth of their child would discourage her interest in acting. When it did not he agreed to move to Los Angeles in late 1954 to help further her career.[2] Between a variety of odd jobs, including candy vendor at a movie theatre, Jayne studied drama at UCLA. Her movie career began with bit parts at Warner Brothers. She had been signed by the studio after one of its talent scouts discovered her in a production at the Pasadena Playhouse. Mansfield had small roles in Female Jungle (1954), and in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) which starred Jack Webb.
In 1955 Paul Wendkos offered her the dramatic role of Gladden in The Burglar, his film adaptation of David Goodis' novel. The film was done in film noir style, and Mansfield appeared alongside Dan Duryea and Martha Vickers. The Burglar was released two years later when Mansfield's fame was at its peak. She was successful in this straight dramatic role, though most of her subsequent film appearances would be either comedic in nature or capitalize on her sex appeal[citation needed]. She made two more movies with Warner Bros., one of which gave her a minor role as Angel O'Hara, a hitman's mistress, opposite Edward G. Robinson in Illegal (1955).
Career high
In 1955, she went to New York and appeared in a prominent role in the Broadway production of George Axelrod's comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. The New York Times described the "commendable abandon" of her scantily clad rendition of Rita Marlowe in the play, "a platinum-pated movie siren with the wavy contours of Marilyn Monroe.[3]
Mansfield then returned to Hollywood and starred in Frank Tashlin's film The Girl Can't Help It (1956). On May 3, 1956, she signed a long-term contract with 20th-Century Fox. She then played a straight dramatic role (albeit as a stripper) in The Wayward Bus in 1957. With her role in this film she attempted to move away from her "dumb blonde" image and establish herself as a serious actress. This film was adapted from John Steinbeck's novel. The cast included Dan Dailey and Joan Collins. The role was a change of pace from Mansfield's stereotyped persona and the film enjoyed reasonable success at the box office.
She won a Golden Globe in 1957 for Most Promising Newcomer - Female, beating Carroll Baker and Natalie Wood, for her performance as a "wistful derelict" in The Wayward Bus. It was "generally conceded to have been her best acting," according to The New York Times, in a fitful career hampered by her flamboyant image, squeaky voice ("a soft-voiced coo punctuated with squeals"),[4] almost comically voluptuous figure, and limited acting range.
She then reprised her role of Rita Marlowe in the 1957 movie version of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, co-starring Tony Randall and Joan Blondell. The Girl Can't Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? were popular successes in their day and are largely considered classics. Her fourth starring role in a Hollywood film was Kiss Them for Me (1957) in which she received prominent billing alongside Cary Grant. However, in the film itself she is little more than comedy relief while Grant's character shows a preference for a sleek, demure redhead portrayed by fashion model Suzy Parker. Kiss Them for Me was a box-office disappointment and would prove to be her final starring role in a mainstream Hollywood studio film.
Career decline
Despite her monumental publicity and public popularity, good roles dried up for Mansfield after 1959, the year after she married Mickey Hargitay, a Hungarian-born bodybuilder who had been Mr. Universe 1955. The actress nevertheless kept busy in a series of low-budget films mostly filmed in Europe. These showed off as much of her anatomy as possible, but used little of her acting or comedic talents. Mansfield remained a highly visible personality even with these career setbacks.
Fox tried to cast Mansfield opposite Paul Newman in his ill-fated first attempt at comedy, Rally Round The Flag, Boys, but the actor preferred her Wayward Bus co-star Joan Collins.[citation needed] Among other unrealized projects, Joe Pasternak was to produce Three Blondes, a film based on a French novel by Pierre Dassete that (hopefully) would have co-starred Mansfield, Lana Turner and Kim Novak. However, the project was dropped before production began[citation needed].
In 1960 Fox loaned her out to appear in two independent gangster thrillers in England. These were Too Hot to Handle, which was directed by Terence Young and co-starred Karlheinz Böhm, and The Challenge, co-starring Anthony Quayle. Fox also lined up It Happened in Athens. This Olympic-themed movie was filmed in Greece and would not be released until 1962. Despite receiving top billing in It Happened in Athens, Mansfield was relegated to a colorful, scantily-clad supporting role.
Promises! Promises!
In 1963, the comedian turned producer-screenwriter Tommy Noonan persuaded Mansfield to become the first mainstream American actress to appear in the nude with a starring role in the film Promises! Promises!. Photographs of a naked Mansfield on the set were published in Playboy. In one notorious set of images Mansfield stares at one of her breasts, as does her male secretary and a hair stylist, then grasps it in one hand and lifts it high. The sold-out issue resulted in an obscenity charge for Hugh Hefner which was later dropped. (In Kenneth Anger's book Hollywood Babylon II, a photo from an unknown source reveals a shot from the movie's set in which Mansfield displays prominent pubic hair.) Promises! Promises! was banned in Cleveland, but it enjoyed box-office success elsewhere. Because of the film's success, Jayne landed on the Top 10 list of Box Office Attractions for that year. [5]
Career end
By the early 1960s Mansfield's reign in Hollywood was effectively over. One critic summed up her last decade of film vehicles as "one of the most consistently awful in cinema history." The decision to do nude scenes had ruined any chance of her return to mainstream productions. Even Mansfield seemed stunned by her sudden shift in professional status, saying, "Once you were a starlet. Then you're a star. Can you be a starlet again?"
In 1963 she appeared in the low-budget West German movie Homesick for St. Pauli with Austrian-born schlager singer Freddy Quinn. Mansfield played Evelyne, a sexy American singer who traveling to Hamburg by ship. She is followed by an Elvis-like American pop star (Quinn). Mansfield sang two German songs in the movie, though her speaking voice was dubbed.
Outside film
Stage work
Theater: Mansfield acted on stage as well as in film. Aside from her career-making run in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? she also appeared in stage productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Bus Stop, which were well reviewed and co-starred Mickey Hargitay.
Tour: In October 1957, Jayne Mansfield went on a 16-country tour of Europe for 20th-Century Fox. She received much attention at the Cannes Film Festival and was presented to Queen Elizabeth II on November 4, after a screening of the movie Les Girls. "You are looking so beautiful," she said to the Queen, who replied, "Thank you very much indeed. So are you."[6]
Stage show: Dissatisfied with her film roles, Mansfield and Hargitay headlined at the Dunes in Las Vegas in an act called The House of Love, for which the actress earned $35,000 a week. It proved to be such a hit that she extended her stay, and 20th-Century Fox Records subsequently recorded the show for an album called Jayne Mansfield Busts Up Las Vegas, in 1962.
Nightclubs: In 1967, the year she died, Mansfield's time was split between nightclub performances and the production of her last film, Single Room Furnished, a low-budget production directed by Cimber. Work on the movie was suspended when the Cimbers' marriage collapsed in the wake of the actress's alcohol abuse, open infidelities, and her claim to Cimber that she had only ever been happy with her former lover, Nelson Sardelli. Mansfield continued her nightclub appearances in the U.S., South America, England, and Asia and became romantically involved with her married divorce lawyer, Sam Brody.
Television
Though her roles were becoming increasingly marginalized, Mansfield turned down the plum role of Ginger Grant in the television sitcom Gilligan's Island, claiming that the role, which eventually was given to Tina Louise, was beneath her because "I am a movie star."
Mansfield toured with Bob Hope for the USO and appeared on numerous television programs, including The Jack Benny Show (where she played the violin), The Steve Allen Show, Down You Go, The Match Game (One rare episode exists with her as a team captain), and The Jackie Gleason Show. Mansfield's television roles included appearances in Burke's Law and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. On returning from New York to Hollywood, she made several television appearances, including several spots as a featured guest star on game shows.
Recordings
In addition to singing in English and German in a number of films, in 1964, Mansfield released a novelty album called Jayne Mansfield: Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky & Me, on which she recited Shakespeare's sonnets and poems by Marlowe, Browning, Wordsworth, and others against a background of Tchaikovsky's music. The album cover depicted a bouffant-coiffed Mansfield with lips pursed and breasts barely covered by a fur stole, posing between busts of the Russian composer and the Bard of Avon.[7]
The New York Times described the album as the actress reading "30-odd poems in a husky, urban, baby voice". The paper's reviewer went on to state that "Miss Mansfield is a lady with apparent charms, but reading poetry is not one of them."[8]
Publicity stunts
" Jayne Mansfield is making a career of being a girl. "
?-Walter Winchell, reporter[9]
By the late 1950s, Mansfield began to generate a great deal of negative publicity due to her repeatedly successful attempts to expose her breasts in carefully staged public "accidents" that today would be euphemistically called "wardrobe malfunctions". Her bosom was so much a part of her public persona that talk-show host Jack Paar once welcomed the actress to The Tonight Show by saying, "Here they are, Jayne Mansfield" (the line was written for Paar by Dick Cavett).[10] Early in her career, the prominence of her breasts was considered problematic, leading her to be cut from her first professional assignment, an advertising campaign for General Electric, which depicted several young women in bathing suits relaxing around a pool[11].
Mansfield appeared in about 2,500 newspaper photographs between September 1956 and May 1957, and had about 122,000 lines of newspaper copy written about her during this time. Because of the successful media blitz, Jayne Mansfield was a household name even though few people had seen her perform[citation needed].
Wardrobe malfunctions
In April 1957, her bosom was the feature of a notorious publicity stunt intended to deflect attention from Sophia Loren during a dinner party in the Italian star's honor. Photographs of the encounter were published around the world. The most famous image showed Loren raising a contemptuous eyebrow at the American actress, who was standing between Loren and her dinner companion, Clifton Webb, leaned over the table and allowed her breasts to spill over her low neckline and expose one nipple.
A similar incident, resulting in the full exposure of both breasts, occurred during a film festival in Berlin, when Mansfield was wearing a low-cut dress and her second husband, Mickey Hargitay, picked her up so she could bite a bunch of grapes hanging overhead at a party; the movement caused her breasts to erupt out of the dress. The photograph of that episode was a UPI sensation, appearing in newspapers and magazines with the word "censored" hiding the actress's exposed bosom.
The world media was quick to condemn Mansfield's stunts, and one editorial columnist wrote, "We are amused when Miss Mansfield strains to pull in her stomach to fill out her bikini better. But we get angry when career-seeking women, shady ladies, and certain starlets and actresses ... use every opportunity to display their anatomy unasked."[12]
Debated measurements
Mansfield's most celebrated physical attributes would alternate in size due to her pregnancies and breast-feeding five children, and indeed many photos show the actress's bosom appearing smaller than its reputed 40D measurement. During a nightclub tour in London, England in 1967, her breasts were measured by paparazzi, and they were reported to be 46D.[citation needed] The director and producer Russ Meyer said that Mansfield's reputation for being large-breasted was based on a misconception and due mainly to her visibly large ribcage and the adoption of daring decolletages.
Comparison to Marilyn Monroe
I don't know why you people [the press] like to compare me to Marilyn or that girl, what's her name, Kim Novak. Cleavage, of course, helped me a lot to get where I am. I don't know how they got there. "
?-Jayne Mansfield[13]
Another impediment to retaining her position as America's bombshell, especially after the death of Marilyn Monroe, was the fact that, according to The New York Times, Mansfield "suffers from too much publicity and too few roles. She has become rather a caricature ?- like Mae West ?- and alienates the segment [of movie-goers] which takes sex seriously."[14]
By 1962, if the studios held her in low regard as an actress, Mansfield still commanded high prices as a live performer, though she openly yearned to establish a more sophisticated image. She announced that she wanted to study acting in New York, in apparent emulation of Marilyn Monroe's stint with the Actors' Studio. But her reliance on the racy publicity that had set her path to fame would also prove to be her downfall. Fox didn't renew its contract with her in 1962.
Even with her film roles drying up she was widely considered to be Monroe's primary rival in a crowded field of contenders that included Mamie Van Doren (whom Mansfield considered her professional nemesis), Diana Dors, Cleo Moore, Joi Lansing, and Sheree North.
Personal life
Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay"
I need to have a man around. I have to sleep with a man every night. I really do. "
?-Jayne Mansfield[15]
Mansfield was married three times, divorced twice, and had five children. The actress reportedly also had affairs and sexual encounters with numerous individuals, including Claude Terrail (the owner of the Paris restaurant La Tour d'Argent), the Brazilian playboy billionaire Jorge Guinle,[16] and Robert F. Kennedy.[17] Her rival Monroe had relations with Guinle and Robert's brother John F. Kennedy. She was accompanied, in her death, by her lawyer and boyfriend at the time, Sam Brody.
She had a brief affair with Jan Cremer, a young Dutch writer who dedicated his autobiographical novel I, Jan Cremer (1965) to the actress, who called the book "a wild and sexy masterpiece" and the author "my Pop Hero".[18] She also had a well-publicized relationship in 1963 with the singer Nelson Sardelli, whom she said she planned to marry once her divorce from Mickey Hargitay was finalized.[19]
Husbands/Children
Paul Mansfield, whom Jayne secretly married on 28 January 1950. The couple had a public wedding on 10 May 1950 and were divorced on 8 January 1958. During this marriage they had one child, Jayne Marie Mansfield (8 November 1950?-), who was a Playboy centerfold in the magazine's July 1976 issue. Two weeks before her mother's death, Jayne Marie, then 16, accused her mother's boyfriend, Sam Brody, of beating her mother.[20] The girl's statement to officers of the West Los Angeles police department the following morning implicated her mother in encouraging the abuse, and days later, a juvenile-court judge awarded temporary custody of Jayne Marie to a great-uncle, W.W. Pigue.[21]
Miklós Hargitay, an actor and bodybuilder who was Mr. Universe 1955. He and Jayne married on 13 January 1958 in Portuguese Bend, California and divorced in Juarez, Mexico in May 1963. The Mexican divorce was initially declared invalid in California but in August of 1964 Mansfield successfully sued to have it declared legal. She had previously filed for divorce on 4 May 1962 but told reporters "I'm sure we will make it up."[22] Their acrimonious divorce had the actress accusing Hargitay of kidnapping one of her children to force a more favorable financial settlement.[23] During this marriage she had three children:
Miklós Jeffrey Palmer Hargitay (21 December 1958?-)
Zoltan Anthony Hargitay (1 August 1960?-), famously mauled by a lion.
Mariska Magdolina Hargitay (called Maria, 24 January 1964?-), a 2005 Best Drama Actress Golden Globe award winner and a 2006 Outstanding Lead Drama Actress Emmy Award-winner; portrays Olivia Benson on the television show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Matt Cimber (alias Matteo Ottaviano, né Thomas Vitale Ottaviano): an Italian-born film director. They married on 24 September 1964, separated on 11 July 1965, and filed for divorce on 20 July 1966. [24] Cimber was a director with whom the actress had become involved when he directed her in a widely praised stage production of Bus Stop in Yonkers, New York, which costarred Hargitay. Cimber took over managing her career during their marriage. With him she had one son,
Antonio Raphael Ottaviano (a.k.a. Tony Cimber, 17 October 1965?-).
The Pink Palace
" I've been identified with pink throughout my career, but I'm not as crazy about it as I've led people to believe. My favorite colors are actually neutrals - black and white - but then who thinks of a movie queen in black and white? Everything has to be in living color. "
?-Jayne Mansfield[25]
In November 1957, shortly before her marriage to Hargitay, Mansfield bought a 40-room Mediterranean-style mansion formerly owned by Rudy Vallee at 10100 Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, which she had painted pink and then called the "Pink Palace." As its name implies, the mansion's interior and exterior color scheme was largely what would become the actress's signature color, with cupids surrounded by pink fluorescent lights, pink furs in the bathrooms, a pink heart-shaped bathtub, and a fountain spurting pink champagne. Hargitay, who was a plumber and carpenter before he got into bodybuilding, built its famous pink heart-shaped swimming pool. Engelbert Humperdinck bought the Pink Palace in the 1970s. In 2002, he sold it to developers, and the house was demolished in November of that year.
Death
After an engagement at the Gus Stevens Supper Club in Biloxi, Mississippi, Mansfield, Brody, and their driver, Ronnie Harrison, along with the actress's children Miklós, Zoltan, and Mariska, set out in Stevens' 1966 Buick Electra 225 to New Orleans, where Mansfield was to appear in an early morning television interview. On June 29, at approximately 2:25 a.m., on U.S. Highway 90, the car, which was reportedly going 80 miles per hour, crashed into the rear of a tractor-trailer that had slowed down because of a truck spraying mosquito fogger. The children survived with minor injuries, but the adults were killed instantly.[26] The car was returned to its owner, Gus Stevens, who eventually sold it. It was in a museum in Florida for several years but now is owned by a Mansfield fan in North Carolina.[citation needed]
Rumors of decapitation: Rumors that Mansfield was decapitated have been proven untrue, though she did suffer severe head trauma. This urban legend was possibly spawned by the appearance in police photographs of what resembles a blonde wig tangled in the car's smashed windshield. It is believed that this was either a wig that Mansfield was wearing at the time or was her actual hair and scalp.[27]
Funeral
The actress's funeral was held on July 3, 1967, in Pen Argyl. The ceremony was officiated by a Methodist minister, though Mansfield, who long tried to convert to Catholicism, had become interested in Judaism at the end of her life, through her relationship with Sam Brody, though she apparently had not officially converted.[28] She is interred in Fairview Cemetery, southeast of Pen Argyl. Her gravestone is a beautiful carved heart which is pink, though it has faded over time. It reads "WE LIVE TO LOVE YOU MORE EACH DAY".
Estate: Shortly after her funeral, Mickey Hargitay sued his former wife's estate for more than $275,000 to support the children, whom he and his third and last wife, Ellen Siano, would raise. Mansfield's youngest child, Tony, was raised by his father, Matt Cimber, whose divorce from the actress was pending when she was killed. In 1968, wrongful-death lawsuits were filed on behalf of Jayne Marie Mansfield and Matt Cimber, the former for $4.8 million and the latter for $2.7 million.[29]
Recognition
In February 1955, Mansfield was the Playmate of the Month in Playboy, a magazine in which she would appear several more times over the years.[30] One Mansfield bio found it significant that after ex-Beatle Paul McCartney referred to Mansfield as "an old bag" in a 1965 Playboy interview of The Beatles, Mansfield was never asked to appear nude in the magazine again.[citation needed] (McCartney later referred to Mansfield's film The Girl Can't Help It as a major influence on The Beatles film A Hard Day's Night.)[citation needed]
Although she'd been unwilling to appear in the play, she received the Theatre World Award of 1956 for her performance in the Broadway production of George Axelrod's comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?.
She won a Golden Globe in 1957 for Most Promising Newcomer - Female.
She won a Golden Laurel in 1959 for Top Female Musical Performance for her role in The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw, a western spoof directed by Raoul Walsh.
In 1963, Mansfield was voted one of the Top 10 Box Office Attractions by an organization of American theater owners for her performance in Promises! Promises!, a film banned in areas around the US[citation needed].
Jayne Mansfield has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6328 Hollywood Boulevard.
A memorial cenotaph, showing a wrong birth year, was erected in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, California. The cenotaph was placed by The Jayne Mansfield Fan Club and has the incorrect birth year because Jayne herself tended to change her own birth year.
Reference of Mansfield in popular culture
In the 1996 film Crash, a character recreates Mansfield's fatal accident and kills himself in the process.
The Japanese female rock band The 5.6.7.8's wrote a song titled "I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield", which is featured in the movie Kill Bill Vol. 1, directed by Quentin Tarantino.
The subject of the Siouxsie and the Banshees song Kiss Them for Me, the title of Mansfield's 1957 film.
The Frank Tashlin WWII era cartoon Plane Daffy has a villainess named Hatta Mari who has the same hourglass figure and blond hair as Mansfield (though this cartoon was made before Mansfield became famous).
In the film To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar, Patrick Swayze's character, Vida Boheme, remarked while trying out a vintage pink convertible, "I feel like Miss Jayne Mansfield in this car". Wesley Snipes character, Noxema Jackson, replied "Uh oh, Jayne Mansfield. Not a good auto reference!"
She was the subject of a sketch entitled 'The Worst Job I Ever 'Ad' by comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore alter-egos Derek and Clive from their 1976 LP Derk and Clive Live, in which Clive (Cook) had the terrible job of retrieving lobsters from Mansfield's derriere.
In 1989, the band L.A. Guns released "The Ballad of Jayne".
In the 2003 single "Overdrive," Katy Rose sang, "I'm sitting in Jayne Mansfield's car."
In 1990, the cyberpunk band Sigue Sigue Sputnik released "Hey Jane Mansfield Superstar"
During the late 1950s, the front bumpers of some American cars came with extensions that resembled a pair of the conical brassieres of the period. Soon after their introduction, these extensions were nicknamed "Jayne Mansfields."[citation needed]
Mansfield appears as a character in Underworld, a 2005 novel by Don DeLillo [1]
In the Showtime series Dead Like Me she is referenced by George when ordering blueberry muffins with just the top of the muffin. "I'll have a Jayne Mansfield."
On the season 32 episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Alec Baldwin (with musical guest Christina Aguilera), one of the commercial bumpers has Alec Baldwin PhotoShopped into the famous picture of Sophia Loren staring at Mansfield's chest at Romanoff's in Beverly Hills.
On an episode of Gilmore Girls, Lorelai goes fishing with Alex. She catches a fish, brings it home and names it Jayne Mansfield. She named it that because she had a "great tail switch."
Mansfield is mentioned in the third sketch of the 48th show of the second season of the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show (also featuring Wailing Whale episodes 5 & 6), which was first released on May 13 1961. Mansfield also helped unveil a Rocky & Bullwinkle statue on Sunset Blvd.
Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat books often refer to Mansfield. Dirk and Weetzie watch 'The Girl Can't Help It' and make the siren noise, and Witch Baby's mother is part of a sinister cult which masquerades as a Jayne Mansfield fan club.
In the song "Movie Star" by the rock band Cracker, the lyrics imply a possible reference to Mansfield: "Well the movie star, well she crashed her car, but everyone said she was beautiful even without her head, everyone said she was dangerous."
On the Married with Children season 3 episode "A Dump of My Own," Al Bundy says that when he was young he had two dreams and one of them was to become an astronaut and land on the planet Jayne Mansfield.
Dudley Moore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born April 19, 1935
Dagenham, Essex, England
Died March 27, 2002
Plainfield, New Jersey
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE (April 19, 1935 - March 27, 2002), was an Academy-Award nominated British actor, comedian and musician.
Moore became famous as a performer in "Beyond the Fringe" in the 1960s and later for his work with Peter Cook. He gained worldwide recognition in the Hollywood movie 10 with Bo Derek.
Early life
Moore was born the son of a railway electrician in Dagenham, Essex, England. His working-class parents showed little affection to their offspring (as his older sister publicly revealed). He was notably short: 5' 2½" (1.59 m) and was born with a club foot that required extensive hospital treatment and which, coupled with his diminutive stature, made him the butt of jokes by other children. Seeking refuge from his problems he became a choirboy at the age of six and took up piano and violin. He rapidly developed into a talented pianist and organist and was playing the organ at church weddings by age 14. He attended Dagenham County High School where he received musical tuition from a dedicated teacher, Peter Cork. Cork later went on to become a friend and confidant to Moore, corresponding with him until 1994.
While studying music and composition at Magdalen College, Oxford University, (where he was an organ scholar), Moore performed with Alan Bennett in the Oxford Revue. Bennett then recommended him to the producer putting together Beyond the Fringe, a comedy revue which many see as a forerunner to Monty Python's Flying Circus. Beyond the Fringe was at the forefront of the 1960s satire boom. After enormous success in Britain it transferred to the USA where it was also a hit.
During his university years Moore became passionately interested in jazz and soon became an accomplished jazz pianist and composer as well as working with leading musicians such as John Dankworth and Cleo Laine. In 1960 he left Dankworth's band to work on Beyond the Fringe. Later in the 1960s he formed the acclaimed "Dudley Moore Trio" (with drummer Chris Karan and bassists Pete McGurk and later Peter Morgan). The trio performed regularly on British television, made numerous recordings and had a long-running residency at Peter Cook's club, The Establishment.
In the early 1970s he had a brief relationship with British singer-songwriter Lynsey De Paul whom he met at a party.
Pete and Dud
After following the Establishment to New York City, Moore returned to the UK and was offered his own series on the BBC. Not Only... But Also (1965) was commissioned as a vehicle for Moore, but when he invited Peter Cook on as a guest, their comedy partnership was so notable that it became a fixture of the series. Cook and Moore are most remembered for their sketches as two working-class men, Pete and Dud, in macs and cloth caps, commenting on politics and the arts, but they fashioned a series of character one-offs, usually with Moore in the role of interviewer to one of Cook's upper-class eccentrics. The pair developed an unorthodox method for scripting the material by using a tape recorder to tape an adlibbed routine that they would then have transcribed and edited. This would not leave enough time to fully rehearse the script so they often had a set of cue cards. Moore was famous for "corpsing"?-the programmes often went on live, and Cook would deliberately make him laugh in order to get an even bigger reaction from the studio audience. Regrettably, many of the videotapes and film reels of these seminal TV shows were later erased by the BBC (an affliction which wiped out large portions of other British television productions as well, such as Doctor Who), although some of the soundtracks (which were issued on record) have survived.
Moore and Cook co-starred in the film Bedazzled (1967) with Eleanor Bron, and also had tours called Behind the Fridge and Good Evening. Bedazzled was remade in 2000 with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley in the lead roles.
However, their three albums of the late 1970s as Derek and Clive, were widely condemned for their use of obscene language and shocking, ad-libbed content. Shortly following the last of these, Ad Nauseam, Moore made a break with Cook, whose alcoholism was affecting his work, to concentrate on his film career. Ironically, when Moore began to manifest the symptoms of the disease that eventually killed him, it was at first suspected that he too had a drinking problem. Further irony manifested itself in two of Moore's early starring roles, most famously the titular drunken playboy Arthur, and to a lesser extent the heavy drinker George Webber in 10.
Later life
In the late 1970s, Moore moved to Hollywood, where he appeared in Foul Play (1978) with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. The following year saw his breakout role in Blake Edwards's 10, which he followed up with the movie Wholly Moses. Soon thereafter Arthur, an even bigger hit than 10, which also starred Liza Minnelli and Sir John Gielgud (who won an Oscar for his role as Arthur's stern but loving caretaker) and Geraldine Fitzgerald.
Moore was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award but lost to Henry Fonda (for On Golden Pond). He did, however, win a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy. In 1984, Moore had another hit, starring in the Blake Edwards directed Micki + Maude, co-starring Amy Irving. This won him another Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy.
His subsequent films, including an Arthur sequel and an animated adaptation of King Kong, were inconsistent in terms of both critical and commercial reception. In later years Cook would wind-up Moore by claiming he preferred Arthur 2: On the Rocks to Arthur.
In addition to acting, Moore continued to work as a composer and pianist, writing scores for a number of films and giving piano concerts, which were highlighted by his popular parodies of classical favourites. In addition, Moore collaborated with the conductor Sir Georg Solti to create a 1991 television series, Orchestra!, which was designed to introduce audiences to the symphony orchestra.
Moore was married to actresses Suzy Kendall and Tuesday Weld (by whom he had a son, Patrick, in 1976). His third and fourth wives were Brogan Lane and Nicole Rothschild (one son, Nicholas, born in 1995). Moore dated and was a favorite of some of Hollywood's most attractive women, including the statuesque Susan Anton; he was generally known as "Cuddly Dudley".
Moore was deeply affected by the untimely death of Peter Cook in 1995, and for weeks would regularly telephone Cook's home in London just to get the answerphone and hear his friend's voice. Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London and at the time many people who knew him noted that Moore was behaving strangely and attributed it to grief or drinking. In November 1995, Moore teamed up with friend and humorist Martin Lewis in organizing a two-day salute to Cook in Los Angeles which Moore co-hosted with Lewis.
Illness and death
In September 1999 Moore announced that he was suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, for which there is no known cure. Treatments are to help make life more comfortable--rather than treat the disorder directly.
In June 2001 Dudley Moore was made a Commander of the Order of The British Empire (CBE). Despite his deteriorating condition he attended the ceremony, mute and wheelchair-bound, at Buckingham Palace to collect his honour.
On March 27, 2002 he died of pneumonia, secondary to immobility caused by the palsy, in Watchung, New Jersey. He was 66 years old. Moore was interred in Hillside Cemetery located in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
In December 2004 the Channel 4 television network in the UK broadcast Not Only But Always, a television movie dramatising the relationship between Moore and Cook, although the focus of the production was on Cook. Around the same time the relationship between the two was also the focus of a stage play called Pete and Dud: Come Again.
Tim Curry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Timothy James Curry
Born April 19, 1946 (1946-04-19) (age 61)
Grappenhall, Warrington, Cheshire, England
Notable roles Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Pennywise in It
Timothy James Curry (born April 19, 1946) is an English actor, singer and composer perhaps best known for his role as mad scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) or as Pennywise in It (1990).
He also had an earlier career as a rock musician. His list of roles is extensive, in both TV and movies, live-action and voice-acting for animated features, and it is notable that he almost always plays a villain of one kind or another. He currently resides in Los Angeles, though for the past year or so has been in Chicago, New York City, and most recently London, with the current Broadway hit Monty Python's Spamalot.
Early life
Tim Curry's father, James, was a Methodist Royal Navy chaplain though Curry himself says he was always a "cheerful agnostic," and remains so to this day. Curry was born and raised in Warrington until upon his father's death in 1958, Curry relocated to South London. He attended Kingswood School and though he didn't enjoy the religious aspect of the Methodist school especially he did enjoy the vast number of hymns available. There, he developed into a talented boy soprano. When his voice broke, his music teacher encouraged him to develop a mature singing voice.
When he was 19, he began his studies at the University of Birmingham, where he also acted with the renowned Guild Theatre Group, completing a joint honours in English and Drama before moving on to study at the University of Cambridge.
He cites Billie Holiday as his major musical influence, saying that he "listened to nothing but her records for two years" during a period of teenage depression as he contemplated on "which gloomy Sunday afternoon I was going to throw myself under a car."
Musical career
Aside from his performances on various soundtrack records, Curry has had some success as a solo musical artist. In 1978, A&M Records released Curry's debut solo album, Read My Lips. The album featured an eclectic range of songs (mostly covers) performed in diverse genre. Highlights of the album are a reggae version of the Beatles song "I Will," a rendition of "Wake Nicodemus" with full bagpipe backing, and an original bar-room ballad, "Alan."
The following year, Curry released his second and most successful album, Fearless. The LP was more rock-oriented than Read My Lips and mostly featured original songs rather than cover versions. The record included Curry's only US charting songs: "I Do the Rock" and "Paradise Garage."
Curry's third and final album, Simplicity, was released in 1981, again by A&M Records. This record, which did not sell as well as the previous offerings, combined both original songs and cover versions, and is commonly held to be the weakest of his three albums.
In 1989, A&M released The Best of Tim Curry on CD and cassette, featuring songs from his albums (including a live version of "Alan") and a previously unreleased song, a live cover version of "Simple Twist of Fate."
Curry toured America with his band through the late 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. He also performed in Roger Waters's (of Pink Floyd fame) 1990 production of The Wall in Berlin, as the prosecutor.
Acting career
Rocky Horror
Curry's first full-time role was as part of the original London cast of the musical Hair in 1968. Here he first met Richard O'Brien, who went on to create his next full-time and perhaps still most famous role, that of Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show.
Originally, Curry rehearsed the character with a German accent and peroxide blonde hair, but the character evolved into the sly, very upper-class English mad scientist and transvestite that carried over to the movie version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and made Curry both a star and a cult figure. He continued to play the character in London, Los Angeles and New York until 1975.
For many years, Curry was reluctant to talk about Rocky Horror, feeling that it was a trend that had gone too far and had distracted attention away from his later roles. A VH1 Pop-Up Video Halloween special even quoted Curry as saying he grew so unnerved by all the fan attention after this role that he became "chubby and plain" in order to escape it. However, in recent years he has been much more open about discussing the show and now recognises it as a "rite of passage" for many young people.
Theatre
Shortly after the failure of Rocky Horror Show on Broadway, Curry was back on Broadway with Tom Stoppard's "Travesties", which ran in London and New York in 1975-1976. "Travesties" was a huge Broadway hit which won two Tony Awards (Best Performance by an Actor for John Wood and Best Comedy), the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (Best Play) and Curry's performance as the famous dadaist Tristan Tzara received spectacular reviews.
In 1979, Curry took the part of the Pirate King in a London stage version of The Pirates of Penzance opposite George Cole. The role is one of his favourites even now.
In 1981, he formed part of the original cast in the Broadway show Amadeus, playing the title character, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was nominated for his first Tony Award (Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play) for this role, but lost out to his co-star Sir Ian McKellen, who played Antonio Salieri.
Back in England, in the mid 1980-ies, Curry performed in "The Rivals" (Bob Acres 1983) and in several plays with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, including the "Threepenny Opera" (MacHeath 1986), "Dalliance" (Theodore 1986) and "Love For Love" (Tattle 1985).
In 1993, he played Alan Swann in the Broadway musical My Favorite Year, earning him his second Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.
In late 2004, he began his role of King Arthur in Spamalot in Chicago. The show successfully moved to Broadway in February 2005. His part in the show got him his third and most recent Tony Award nomination, again for Best Actor in a Musical. Curry then starred as King Arthur in London's West End at the Palace Theatre, where Spamalot opened on October 16, 2006. On January 18, 2007, Curry was nominated for Laurence Olivier Award as the Best Actor in a Musical; this was one of seven nominations earned by the London production of Spamalot, including a nomination for the Best New Musical. On January 24, 2007, Curry was replaced by Simon Russell Beale, who also took over the role of King Arthur on Broadway. On February 9, 2007 it was announced that Curry also won the Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers' Choice Award (getting 39% of the votes cast by over 12,000 theatregoers) as Best Actor in a Musical for his King Arthur at the Palace Theatre.
