WA2K Radio is now on the air

to give letty a good start for tuesday !
a cole porter tune for her :

That's the Way Love Is
Bobby Darin
(Darin)

You're feeling low and oh so small
Then suddenly you're eight feet tall
She just walked in the room
And the gloomy room just glows
That's the way love is
That's how it goes

You're such a drag from nine 'til five
Then all at once you're so alive
It's just the way she winks her eye
Or wrinkles her nose
That's the way love is
That's how it goes

It's the world's oldest unsolved riddle
The kind of game you just can't win
And if you come up with the answer
You're a better man sir, than I, Gunga Din

So when that tingle hits you deep
And you're tired but you just can't sleep
Don't you take my word
Go and ask anyone who knows
That's the way love is
That's how it goes

It's the world's oldest unsolved riddle
The kind of game you just can't win
You come up with the answer
And you're a better man sir, than I, Gunga Din

So when that tingle hits you deep
And you're tired you don't sleep
Don't you take my word
Go and ask anyone who knows
That's the way love is
That's how it goes
That's how it goes
That's how it goes

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

First, allow me to thank edgar and hamburger for the great music of the night. As the dawn alerts us to the new day, and a horizonal streak of roses colors the sound of the ocean, I was reminded of T.S. Eliot and his cats contrasting night and day.

Daylight
See the dew on the sunflower
And a rose that is fading
Roses whither away
Like the sunflower
I yearn to turn my face to the dawn
I am waiting for the day . . .

Midnight
Not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone
In the lamplight
The withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

Every streetlamp
Seems to beat a fatalistic warning
Someone mutters
And the streetlamp gutters
And soon it will be morning

Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I musn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin

Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale cold smell of morning
The streetlamp dies, another night is over
Another day is dawning

Touch me
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is

Look
A new day has begun

Charles Coburn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Charles Douville Coburn
Born June 19, 1877
Savannah, Georgia, U.S.
Died August 30, 1961 (aged 84)
Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, New York, U.S.
Years active 1930s - 1950s
Spouse(s) Winifred Natzka (1959 - ?)
Ivah Wills (1906 - 1937) (widowed)
Notable roles Alexander 'Dandy' Gow in The Green Years
Benjamin Dingle in The More the Merrier
John P. Merrick in The Devil and Miss Jones
Sir Francis 'Piggy' Beekman in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Dr. Henry Gordon in Kings Row
Academy Awards

Nominated: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (1946) for The Green Years
Won: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (1943) for The More the Merrier
Nominated: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (1941) for The Devil and Miss Jones

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




Personal life

He was born in Savannah, Georgia and was an only child. He married two times. His first wife was Ivah Wills Coburn (c. 1882-1937), an American actress and theatrical producer. In 1959, Coburn married Winifred Natzka, who was forty-one years his junior and the former wife of Oscar Natzka, an opera singer.

He died from a heart attack on August 30, 1961 in New York, New York, aged 84.


Career

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

He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The More the Merrier in 1943. He was also nominated for The Devil and Miss Jones in 1941 and The Green Years in 1946. Coburn has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to motion pictures at 6240 Hollywood Boulevard.

His other film credits include Of Human Hearts (1938), The Lady Eve (1941), Kings Row (1942), The Constant Nymph (1943), Heaven Can Wait (1943), Wilson (1944), Impact (1949), The Paradine Case (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and John Paul Jones (1959).


Hollywood blacklist

In the 1940s, Coburn served as vice-president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a right-wing group opposed to Communists in Hollywood. His leadership of the Hollywood blacklist of anyone with any connection to Communism, supported by such luminaries as John Wayne, Hedda Hopper, Adolphe Menjou, Ward Bond, Robert Taylor, Ronald Reagan and Ginger Rogers, to name a few, led to a myriad of talented actors, writers and directors being driven out of Hollywood and deprived of their livelihood.

Moe Howard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Moe Howard


Birth name Harry Moses Horwitz
Born June 19, 1897
Bensonhurst,
New York
Died May 4, 1975 (aged 77)
Los Angeles, California
Years active 1909-1975
Spouse(s) Helen Schonberger
(1925 - 1975)
Notable roles Moe Howard in
The Three Stooges

Moe Howard (June 19, 1897 - May 4, 1975) was one of The Three Stooges, the slapstick comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades. His distinctive hairstyle came about when he was a boy and cut off his curls with a pair of scissors, producing a ragged shape approximating a helmet.




Biography

Early life

Moe was born Harry Moses Horwitz in the Brooklyn, New York neighborhood of Bensonhurst to a Jewish family. He was the fourth of the five Horwitz brothers and of Levite and Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. Although his parents were not involved in show business, Moe, his older brother Samuel, and younger brother Jerome, all eventually became world-famous as members of The Three Stooges.

In school, Moe originally did quite well, aided by a prolific memory, able to quickly memorize anything. In later years, this helped him in his acting career, making memorizing his lines quick and easy. Moe loved reading, as his older brother Jack commented "I had many Horatio Alger books and it was Moe's greatest pleasure to read them. They started his imaginative mind working and gave him ideas by the dozen. I think they were instrumental in putting thoughts into his head to become a person of good character and to become successful."[citation needed]

Although his "bowl-cut" hairstyle is now widely recognized, as a child his mother refused to cut his hair, letting it grow to shoulder length. One day, he could not take his classmates' teasing any longer, snuck off to a shed in this parents backyard, and with the help of a friend and a mixing bowl, cut his hair. Moe was so afraid his mother would be upset (she enjoyed curling his hair) that he hid under the house for several hours causing a panic. He finally came out and his mother was so glad to see him that she did not even mention the hair.

Moe began to develop an interest in acting and, as a result, his schoolwork suffered. He began playing hooky from school in order to attend theater shows. Moe said, "I used to stand outside the theater knowing the truant officer was looking for me. I would stand there 'til someone came along and then ask them to buy my ticket. It was necessary for an adult to accompany a juvenile into the theatre. When I succeeded I'd give him my ten cents-that's all it cost-and I'd go up to the top of the balcony where I'd put my chin on the rail and watch, spellbound, from the first act to the last. I would usually select the actor I liked the most and follow his performance throughout the play."[citation needed]

Despite his decreasing attendance Moe graduated from public school 163 in Brooklyn, but he dropped out of Erasmus Hall High School after only two months. This was the end of his formal education. To mollify his parents he took a class in electric shop, but quit after a few months to pursue a career in show business.

Moe began by running errands for no fee at the Vitagraph Studios in Midwood, Brooklyn (currently the home of the CBS daytime serial As the World Turns), where he was rewarded with bit parts in movies being made there. Unfortunately, a fire at the studios in 1910 destroyed the film of most of Moe's work done there. In 1909 he met a young man named Lee Nash who would later provide a significant boost to Moe's career aspirations. In 1912, they both held a summer job working in Annette Kellerman's aquatic act as diving "girls."


Career

Moe continued his attempts at gaining show business experience by singing in a bar with his older brother Shemp until their father put a stop to it, and in 1914 joining a performing troupe on a showboat for the next two summers. In 1921, he joined Lee Nash, who was now firmly established in show business as Ted Healy, in a vaudeville routine. One day Moe spotted Shemp watching the show and yelled at him from the stage. Shemp and Moe heckled each other to a large positive repsonse from the audience and Healy hired Shemp as a permanent part of the act. Next, Healy recruited a vaudeville violinist, Larry Fine, to join the comedy troupe, which was billed as Ted Healy and His Racketeers (later changed to Ted Healy and His Stooges).

On 1925-06-07, Moe Howard married Helen Schonberger, a cousin of magician Harry Houdini[citation needed]. The next year, Helen pressured Moe to leave the stage, as she was pregnant and wanted Moe nearer to home. Moe attempted to earn a living in a succession of "normal" jobs, none of which was very successful. He soon returned to working with Ted Healy.

By 1930, Ted Healy and his Stooges were on the verge of "the big time," and made their first movie, Soup to Nuts?-featuring Ted Healy, and his four Stooges (Moe, Shemp, Larry, and one-shot Stooge Fred Sanborn)?-for Fox Films (later Twentieth Century-Fox). Shemp had never seen eye-to-eye with the hard-drinking and sometimes belligerent Healy, and left the group shortly after filming in order to pursue a solo film career. After a short search for a replacement, Moe suggested his baby brother, Jerome ("Jerry" to his friends, "Babe" to Moe and Shemp). Healy originally passed on Jerry, but Jerry was so eager to join the act that he shaved off his luxuriant auburn mustache and hair and ran on stage during Healy's routine. Healy hired Jerry, who took the stage name of "Curly."

Healy and the Stooges were hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as "nut" comics, to liven up feature films and short subjects with their antics. After a number of appearances in MGM films, Healy was being groomed as a solo character comedian. With Healy pursuing his own career, his Stooges (now calling themselves "The Three Stooges") signed with Columbia Pictures where they stayed until December 1957, making 190 short films.

With Healy's departure, Moe's character assumed Healy's previous role of the aggressive, take-charge leader of the Three Stooges: a short-tempered bully, prone to slapstick violence against the other two Stooges. In many ways, this was the antithesis of Moe Howard's real personality; he was quiet, loving, and generous to his friends and family. He was also a shrewd businessman, and invested the money made from his film career wisely. However, the Stooges got no subsequent royalties from any of their many shorts: they were paid a flat amount for each one and Columbia owned the rights (and profits) thereafter.

In 1934, Columbia released its first Three Stooges short, Woman Haters, where their stooge characters were not quite finalized. It was not a Stooge comedy in the classic sense, but rather a romantic farce; Columbia was then making a series of two-reel "Musical Novelties" with the dialogue spoken in rhyme, and the Stooges were recruited to support comedienne Marjorie White. Only after the Stooges became established as short-subject stars were the main titles changed to give the Stooges top billing. The version seen on TV and video today is this reissue print.

Their next film, Punch Drunks, was the only short film that was written entirely by the Three Stooges, with Curly as a reluctant boxer who goes ballistic every time he hears "Pop Goes the Weasel." Their next short, Men in Black (a parody of the hospital drama Men in White) was their first and only film to be nominated for an Academy Award (with the classic catchphrase, "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard"). They continued making short films at a steady pace of eight per year, such as Three Little Pigskins (with a very young Lucille Ball), Pop Goes the Easel, Hoi Polloi (where two professors make a bet trying to turn the Three Stooges into gentlemen), and many others.

In the 1940s, the Three Stooges became topical, making several anti-Nazi movies including You Nazty Spy (1940) (Moe's favorite Three Stooges film), I'll Never Heil Again (1941), and They Stooge to Conga (1943). Moe's accurate impersonation of Adolf Hitler highlighted these shorts.

On May 6, 1946, during the filming of Half-Wits Holiday, brother Curly suffered a stroke. He was replaced in the Three Stooges by Shemp, who agreed to return to the group until Curly would be well enough to rejoin. Although Curly recovered enough to appear in Hold That Lion! in a cameo appearance (the only Three Stooges film to contain all three Howard brothers; Moe, Curly, and Shemp), he soon suffered a series of strokes which led to his death on January 18, 1952.

The Three Stooges' series of shorts continued to be popular through the 1950s; Shemp co-starred in 73 comedies. (The Stooges also co-starred in a George O'Brien western, Gold Raiders, in 1951.) Moe also co-produced occasional western and musical films in the 1950s.

On November 22, 1955, Shemp died of a heart attack, necessitating the need for another Stooge. Producer Jules White used old footage of Shemp to complete four more films, until Moe hired Joe Besser in 1956. Joe, Larry, and Moe filmed 16 shorts through December 1957. With the death of Columbia CEO Harry Cohn, the making of short subjects came to an end, and Howard was forced to take a job as a gofer at Columbia.

Fortunately for the Stooges, Columbia sold the Three Stooges' library of short films to television under the "Screen Gems" brand. With this, the Three Stooges quickly gained a new audience of young fans. Ever the businessman, Moe Howard put together a new Stooges act, with burlesque and screen comic Joe DeRita (dubbed "Curly-Joe" due to his resemblance to Curly Howard) as the new "third Stooge." The revitalized trio starred in several feature-length movies: Have Rocket, Will Travel, Snow White and the Three Stooges, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, The Three Stooges in Orbit, The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze, and The Outlaws Is Coming!.

Moe, Larry and Curly-Joe continued to make live appearances, many notable "guest appearances", notably in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and 4 for Texas. The boys tried their hand at a children's cartoon show titled The New 3 Stooges, with the cartoons sandwiched between live action segments of the boys. However, by 1965, the three had aged too much to continue performing slapstick comedy. They did receive royalties from their features with Curly-Joe, and income from the volume of Three Stooges merchandising.

Moe sold real estate when his show-business life slowed down, although he still did minor roles and walk-on bits (Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, Dr. Death: Seeker of Souls), television appearances (Here's Hollywood, Toast of the Town, Masquerade Party, and several appearances on The Mike Douglas Show). The Stooges also made several appearances on late night television, particularly The Tonight Show.

The Stooges attempted to make a final film in 1969, Kook's Tour, which was essentially an early "reality TV" show of Moe, Larry and Curly-Joe, out of character, touring the country and interacting with fans. On January 8, 1970, Larry suffered a major stroke during filming, and died on January 24, 1975, at age 72. Moe asked long-time Three Stooges supporting actor Emil Sitka to replace Larry but this final lineup never recorded any material before Moe's death on May 4, 1975, just a month shy of his 78th birthday.


Moe and the Three Stooges received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 30, 1983, at 1560 Vine Street.


Death

A lifelong smoker, Moe Howard died of lung cancer on May 4, 1975 and was cremated. His remains are interred at Hillside Memorial Park, Culver City, California.

Moe and Helen had two children: Joan (b. 1927) and Paul (b. 1935).

Mildred Natwick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Born June 19, 1905
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Died October 25, 1994
New York, New York, USA

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




Career

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

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

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

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

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

Louis Jourdan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born June 19, 1919 (1919-06-19) (age 88)
Marseille, France
Notable roles
Gaston Lachaille in Gigi
Kamal Khan in Octopussy

Louis Jourdan (born June 19, 1919, 1920, or 1921[1]) is a French film actor. He is known for his roles in several Hollywood films, including Gigi (1958) and Octopussy (1983).





Biography

Early life

Jourdan was born Louis Gendre in Marseille, France to Yvonne Jourdan and Henry Gendre. He was educated in France, Turkey and England and trained as an actor at the École Dramatique, making his film debut in 1939. Following the German occupation of France during World War II, he continued to make films but after refusing to participate in Nazi propaganda films, he joined the French Resistance; his father was arrested by the Gestapo.[2] After the 1944 liberation of France by the Allies, Jourdan married Berthe Frederique, with whom he had a son.


Career

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


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


Personal life

Jourdan's son died of a drug overdose in 1981. Louis Henry Jourdan was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Jourdan has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6153 and 6445 Hollywood Blvd. He is retired and living in the south of France.

Nancy Marchand
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nancy Marchand (June 19, 1928 - June 18, 2000) was an American actress.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Marchand was perhaps best known for her Emmy Award-nominated role of acerbic family matriarch Livia Soprano, mother of Tony Soprano, on the HBO series, The Sopranos. She created the role of Hester Crane, mother of Frasier Crane, on Cheers, and the role of Clara in the original 1954 live television production of Marty. She also is remembered for the 1970s series Lou Grant, in which she starred, opposite Edward Asner, as autocratic newspaper publisher "Mrs. Pynchon," a role that earned her four Emmy Awards as Best Supporting Actress in a Dramatic Series.

Marchand had a long career in Broadway and off-Broadway theatre and on television; she also made some films.

A lifelong chain smoker, Marchand died of emphysema and lung cancer the day before her 72nd birthday in Stratford, Connecticut, and as a result her character's death was written into the third season story line of The Sopranos. Her husband of 48 years, actor Paul Sparer, died of cancer in 1999, not long before her death. She was survived by her three children.

Gena Rowlands
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Virginia Cathryn Rowlands
Born June 19, 1930 (1930-06-19) (age 76)
Cambria, Wisconsin
Other name(s) Gena Rowland
Years active 1956 -present
Spouse(s) John Cassavetes (1954-1989)
Emmy Awards

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
1988 The Betty Ford Story
1992 Face of a Stranger
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie
2003 Hysterical Blindness
Outstanding Performer in a Children/Youth/Family Special
2004 The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie

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




Early life

Born Virginia Cathryn Rowlands in Madison, Wisconsin,[1] and raised in Cambria, Wisconsin, her father, Edwin Myrwyn Rowlands, was a state legislator,[2] and her mother, Mary Allen Neal, a housewife originally from Arkansas.[3] The family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1939 when Edwin was appointed to a position in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1942 when he was appointed as branch manager of the Office of Price Administration,[4] and later to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gena attended the University of Wisconsin from 1947 to 1950,[5] where she was a popular student already renowned for her beauty.[6] She left for New York City to study drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.


Career

Rowlands went from understudy to lead role in the original Broadway production of The Seven Year Itch, and opened in Middle of the Night in 1956. She made her film debut in The High Cost of Loving in 1958. She guest starred in several anthology television series, including Robert Montgomery Presents, Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One, among many others. In 1961 she starred in the well-received television series 87th Precinct, and in 1964 in Peyton Place.

Teaming with her husband, writer and director John Cassavetes, whom she married in 1954, Rowlands starred in many productions, including Staccato, A Child Is Waiting, Faces, Gloria (nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress), Love Streams, Minnie and Moskowitz, She's So Lovely, and A Woman Under the Influence (Academy Award nomination for Best Actress). She starred in The Neon Bible. In 1985, Rowlands played the mother in the critically acclaimed made-for-TV movie An Early Frost. In recent years, she has appeared in Paulie and in Mira Nair's HBO movie, Hysterical Blindness for which she won her third Emmy.

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

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



Controversy

She has recently been the subject of a considerable amount of controversy because of certain actions that she has taken regarding John Cassavetes's films. Perhaps the most notorious of these deals concerns the recently-rediscovered original version of Shadows, which for years was widely-believed to be missing or to have been destroyed. After well over a decade of searching for the film, Ray Carney managed to find a print.[7] Upon hearing of Carney's discovery, Rowland demanded that all copies of the film be turned over to her, and?--in Carney's words?--she declared that she would do anything necessary to keep the film from being seen, including destroy the print.[8]

There are lesser-known incidents regarding screenings of the films Husbands and Love Streams. The UCLA Film and Television Archive mounted a restoration of Husbands, as it was pruned down (without Cassavetes's consent, and in violation of his contract) by Columbia Pictures several months after its release, in an attempt to restore as much of the removed content as possible. However, at Rowlands's request, UCLA created an alternative print with almost ten minutes of content edited out, as Rowlands felt that these scenes were in poor taste. The alternative print is the only one that has been made available for rental.[9]

Pier Angeli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Anna Maria Pierangeli
Born June 19, 1932
Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy
Died September 10, 1971 (aged 39)
Beverly Hills, California
Spouse(s) Vic Damone
Notable roles Teresa
Somebody Up There Likes Me

Pier Angeli (born Anna Maria Pierangeli) (June 19, 1932 - September 10, 1971) was an Italian-born actress.




Early years and MGM

Born in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, she made her film debut with Vittorio de Sica in Domani è troppo tardi (1950), after being spotted by director Léonide Moguy. She was discovered by Hollywood, and MGM launched her in her first American film, Teresa (1951). Directed by Fred Zinnemann, this film also saw the joint debuts of Rod Steiger and John Ericson. Enthusiastic reviews for her eloquent and understated performance compared her to Garbo. Under contract with MGM throughout the 1950s, she appeared in a series of films. In The Light Touch with Stewart Granger, she indeed brought a light touch of innocence to the film. Plans for a film of Romeo and Juliet with her and Marlon Brando fell through when a British-Italian production was announced. Her next few films were respectable but unexciting: The Story of Three Loves (1953) with Kirk Douglas, Sombrero, in which she replaced an indisposed Ava Gardner, and Flame and the Flesh (1954), where she lost her man to Lana Turner.

She was in love with James Dean and most likely pregnant with his child. Meanwhile, MGM having discovered Leslie Caron, another Continental ingénue, Angeli found herself loaned out to other studios. She went to Warner Bros. for The Silver Chalice, which marked the debut of Paul Newman, and made Mam'zelle Nitouche with the great French comic actor Fernandel. For Paramount, she should have had the role of Anna Magnani's daughter in The Rose Tattoo, but motherhood having interfered, it went to her twin sister, Marisa Pavan. She was loaned out again, to Columbia, for Port Afrique (1956). She showed a return to her old form when she returned to MGM for Somebody Up There Likes Me as Paul Newman's long-suffering wife. She was indifferent in The Vintage (1957) with Mel Ferrer and John Kerr, and finished her contract in Merry Andrew, starring Danny Kaye.


Later career and personal life

During the 1960s and until 1970 the actress returned to live and work in Britain and Europe. Few of her films during that period were notable, despite a strong performance opposite Richard Attenborough in The Angry Silence (1960). She was reunited with Stewart Granger for Sodom and Gomorrah (1963), in which she played Lot's wife. She played a brief role in the war epic Battle of the Bulge (1965). It seemed as if her acting career might revive when she was picked to play a role in The Godfather, but she died soon before.

Kirk Douglas and Angeli were engaged in 1950s, according to Douglas' autobiography. For a short time Angeli also had a close relationship with James Dean, and there was a great deal of speculation at the time about possible marriage. However, she broke it off suddenly and went on to marry singer/actor Vic Damone (1954-1959). This was to end in divorce, followed by highly publicised court battles for the custody of their one son. Her second marriage was to Italian composer Armando Trovajoli (1963-1965), with whom she had another son. This marriage also ended in divorce. Just before her death, she spoke of her relationship with James Dean and in part said, "There was only one love in my life, and that was Jimmy Dean."

On September 10, 1971 she died of an overdose of barbiturates in Beverly Hills, California while making a Hollywood comeback in the minor movie Octaman (1971). Speculation that her death was a suicide has never been officially confirmed.

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

Her twin sister is the actress Marisa Pavan.

Marisa Pavan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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

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

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

Kathleen Turner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Mary Kathleen Turner
Born June 19, 1954 (1954-06-19) (age 53)
Springfield, Missouri,
United States
Spouse(s) David Guc (1977-1982)
Jay Weiss (1984-)
Official site Kathleen-Turner.com
Notable roles Matty Walker in Body Heat, 1981,
Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone, 1984 and The Jewel of the Nile, 1985,
Irene Walker in Prizzi's Honor, 1985,
Peggy Sue in Peggy Sue Got Married, 1986,
Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, (stage play) 2006
Academy Awards

Nominated: Best Actress
1986 Peggy Sue Got Married
Golden Globe Awards

Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy
1985 Romancing the Stone
1986 Prizzi's Honor

Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress. She came to fame during the 1980s, after roles in the Hollywood films Romancing the Stone and Prizzi's Honor.




Early life

Turner was born in Springfield, Missouri, the daughter of Patsy Magee and Allen Richard Turner, who was a U.S. foreign service officer and schoolteacher;[1] he grew up in China (where Turner's great-grandfather worked as a Methodist missionary)[2] and, as a foreign services diplomat, had been imprisoned by the Japanese for four years during the Second World War. Because of her father's career, Turner lived in four foreign countries (Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and the United Kingdom. Turner has two brothers and a sister. While attending high school in London, she was a gymnast and also took classes at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

In her early years, Turner was interested in performing, despite her father's lack of encouragement: "My father was of missionary stock," she later explained, "so theater and acting were just one step up from being a streetwalker, you know? So when I was performing in school, he would drive my mom and sit in the car. She'd come out at intermissions and tell him, 'She's doing very well.'"[3]

Turner graduated from the American School in London in 1972. Her father died of a coronary thrombosis the same year and the family moved back to the United States. She attended Missouri State University at Springfield for two years, then gained her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 1977. During this time, she acted in several productions directed by Steve Yeager.



Career

Body Heat

In 1978, the 5' 10" (1.78 m) husky voiced sultry Turner made her acting debut in the television NBC daytime soap The Doctors as the second Nola Dancy Aldrich, but she was fired the next year because the producers felt she was "not hot enough".[citation needed]

Turner soon launched a successful film career, however, making her debut in 1981 as the ruthless Matty Walker in the neo-noir thriller Body Heat, which many consider one of the sexiest films ever.[citation needed] Empire Magazine cited the film in 1995 when it named her one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History.[4] The New York Times wrote in 2005 that, propelled by her "jaw-dropping movie debut [in] Body Heat... she built a career on adventurousness and frank sexuality borne of robust physicality."[3]

The brazen quality of Turner's screen roles was reflected in her public life as well. With her deep voice (in elementary school she sang in the boys' choir) Turner was often compared to a young Lauren Bacall. When the two met, Turner reportedly introduced herself by saying, "Hi, I'm the young you."[5] In the Eighties, she boasted that "on a night when I feel really good about myself, I can walk into a room, and if a man doesn't look at me he's probably gay."[4]


Eighties stardom

On film, Turner rose to prominence as the star of Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. Demanding film critic Pauline Kael wrote of her performance as the mild-mannered romance writer Joan Wilder, "Turner knows how to use her dimples amusingly and how to dance like a woman who didn't know she could; her star performance is exhilarating."[6] Romancing the Stone was a surprise hit: she won a Golden Globe for her role in the film and it became one of the top-ten-grossing movies of 1984.[7] Turner reteamed with Douglas and DeVito the next year for a sequel, The Jewel of the Nile.

After Jewel, Kathleen Turner starred in Prizzi's Honor with Jack Nicholson. winning a second Golden Globe award, and in Peggy Sue Got Married with Nicolas Cage. For Peggy Sue, she received a 1987 Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 1988's toon-noir Who Framed Roger Rabbit, she provided the voice of cartoon femme fatale Jessica Rabbit. Her uncredited, sultry performance was acclaimed as "the kind of sexpot ball-breaker she was made for."[8]

Turner appears in the 1980s song "The Kiss of Kathleen Turner" by Austrian techno-pop singer Falco. In 1989, Turner teamed up with Douglas and DeVito for a third time, in The War of the Roses. The New York Times praised the trio, saying that "Mr. Douglas and Ms. Turner have never been more comfortable a team....each of them is at his or her comic best when being as awful as both are required to be here. [Kathleen Turner is] evilly enchanting."[9] In that film, Turner played a former gymnast, and, as in other roles, she did many of her own stunts. (In fact, she broke her nose filming 1991's V.I. Warshawski.)


Slowed by disease

Turner remained a film star until the early nineties when rheumatoid arthritis began to seriously restrict her activities. She was diagnosed in 1992, after suffering unexplained symptoms of "unbearable" pain for about a year. By the time she was diagnosed, she "could hardly turn her head or walk, and was told she would end up in a wheelchair."[3]

As the disease worsened, her career began to slide and she appeared in increasingly low-budget and obscure films including House of Cards, A Simple Wish, The Real Blonde, and the notoriously awful Baby Geniuses (1999). However, the same year as she starred in Geniuses, Turner also played a supporting role in Sofia Coppola's acclaimed debut film The Virgin Suicides.

Despite drug therapy that made her look bloated and ill, the disease progressed for about eight years. Then, due to newly-available treatments, her arthritis went into remission. She was seen increasingly on television, including an episode of Friends where she appeared as Chandler Bing's transvestite father. She also provided the voice of Malibu Stacy creator on the episode Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy on The Simpsons and she had a recurring role as a defense attorney on Law & Order.

In 2006, Turner performed a cameo in FX's acclaimed Nip/Tuck. She played a phone sex operator in need of laryngeal surgery. She has also recently been doing radio commercial voice-overs for Lay's potato chips.


Stage career

Though her problems with alcoholism and rheumatoid arthritis took their toll on Turner's beauty and once-athletic frame, in recent years she has found renewed success on the stage. After Nineties roles in Broadway productions of Indiscretions and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (for which she earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress), Turner starred in a London stage version of The Graduate in 2000, a role that made headlines around the world.


The Graduate

The BBC reported that initially mediocre ticket sales for The Graduate "went through the roof when it was announced that Turner, then aged 45, would appear naked on stage." While her performance as the middle-aged Mrs. Robinson was popular with audiences (with sustained high box office for the duration of Turner's run), she received mixed reviews from critics.[10] The play transferred to Broadway in 2002 to similar critical reaction. In her next stage performance, however, Turner would receive almost unanimous critical acclaim.


Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

In 2005, Kathleen Turner beat out a score of other contenders (including Jessica Lange, Frances McDormand, and Bette Midler)[3] for the role of Martha, the aging, blowsy, alcoholic anti-heroine in a 2005 Broadway revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

Albee later explained to the New York Times that when Turner read for the part with her eventual co-star Bill Irwin, he heard "an echo of the 'revelation' that he had felt years ago when the parts were read by [Uta] Hagen and Arthur Hill." He added that Turner had "a look of voluptuousness, a woman of appetites, yes ... but a look of having suffered as well."

When the show opened, Turner's performance was extremely well-received, inviting comparisons to Elizabeth Taylor's Oscar-winning movie performance from 1966. The notoriously jaded New York Times critic Ben Brantley praised Turner at length, writing:

" As the man-eating Martha, Ms. Turner, a movie star whose previous theater work has been variable, finally secures her berth as a first-rate, depth-probing stage actress....At 50, this actress can look ravishing and ravaged, by turns. In the second act, she is as predatorily sexy as she was in the movie Body Heat. But in the third and last act she looks old, bereft, stripped of all erotic flourish. I didn't think I would ever be able to see Virginia Woolf again without thinking of Ms. Hagen. But watching Ms. Turner in that last act, fully clothed but more naked than she ever was in The Graduate, I didn't see the specter of Ms. Hagen. All I saw was Ms. Turner. No, let's be fair. All I saw was Martha.[11] "

As Martha, Turner received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play. The show transferred to London's Apollo Theatre in 2006 and a 2007 national tour of the play was also scheduled.

She received a lifetime achievement award from the Savannah College of Art and Design at the Savannah Film Festival in October 2004.


Personal life

Turner lived with agent David Guc from 1977 to 1982. She married a millionaire New York real-estate mogul named Jay Weiss in 1984, and their daughter. Rachel Ann Weiss, was born October 14, 1987. Turner was born into a Methodist family and has said that she has "taken on a certain amount of Jewish tradition and identity" since marrying her husband and raising their daughter in the Jewish religion.[2] In 2006, Turner announced that she and Weiss were planning a trial separation.[4]

By the late Eighties, Turner had acquired a reputation for being somewhat difficult: what the New York Times called "a certifiable diva." She herself said was that she was "not a very kind person" and actress Eileen Atkins has referred to her as "an amazing nightmare."[3] According to her colleagues on Virginia Woolf, she has since become easier to work with.

As a result of her altered looks from her arthritis treatment, The New York Times wrote in 2005, "Rumors began circulating that she was drinking too much. She later said in interviews that she didn't bother correcting the rumors because people in show business hire drunks all the time, but not people who are sick." However, Turner has also had well-publicized problems with alcohol. A few weeks after leaving The Graduate in November 2002, Turner checked herself into Marworth in Waverly, Pennsylvania for alcohol abuse. "I have no problem with alcohol when I'm working," she later explained. "It's when I'm home alone that I can't control my drinking...I was going toward excess. I mean, really! I think I was losing my control over it. So it pulled me back."[3]


Political involvement

Turner serves on the board of People for the American Way, is chairperson for Planned Parenthood of America, and supports Amnesty International, Childhelp USA, and Citymeals-on-Wheels. She was one of John Kerry's first celebrity endorsements and reportedly invited him to come see her as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. She has been a frequent donor to the Democratic Party. She has also worked to raise public awareness of RA.

Paula Abdul
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Background information

Birth name Paula Julie Abdul
Born June 19, 1962 (1962-06-19) (age 45)
Origin San Fernando, California
Genre(s) Pop, Dance, R&B
Occupation(s) Singer, choreographer, dancer, television personality, actress
Years active (1988-1996) (2002-
Label(s) Virgin Records (1987-1998)
Website Paula Abdul Official Website

Paula Julie Abdul (born June 19, 1962) is an American television personality, jewelry designer, multi-platinum Grammy-winning singer, and Emmy Award-winning choreographer.

In the 1980s, Abdul rose from being a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers NBA basketball team to being a sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era, then to being a Pop-R&B singer with a string of hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s. According to Abdul, she has sold over 53 million records to date.[1] After her initial period of success, she suffered a series of reverses in her professional and personal life, until she found renewed fame and success in the 2000s as a judge on the highly rated television series American Idol.




Biography

Early life

Abdul was born in San Fernando, California, to Harry Abdul, who once worked as a livestock trader and owns a sand and gravel business in California, and Lorraine Rykiss, a former concert pianist who once worked as an assistant to film director Billy Wilder. Abdul's father was a Mizrahi Syrian Jew who immigrated with his family to Brazil and then to the U.S.,[2] while her mother is also Jewish and originally from Saint Boniface, an area of Winnipeg, Canada.

She and her sister, Wendy, who is seven years older, lived with their mother in the San Fernando Valley. As a small child Abdul's interest in a career as a performer was inspired by Gene Kelly in the classic film Singin' in the Rain as well as such entertainers as Debbie Allen, Gregory Hines, Sammy Davis Jr., Fred Astaire, and Bob Fosse. When asked in an interview about black influence:

" Absolutely....As a young kid growing up, I admired the talent of so many [Black artists]. Black kids identified with me because we all danced together, and we shared that love for art. My favorite artists were Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, the O'Jays?-that's what I grew up on. That was my consciousness.[3] "

Abdul began dance lessons around the age of eight and showed a natural talent for it. She attended Van Nuys High School where she was on the cheerleading squad, and was an honors student. At 15, she received a scholarship to a dance camp near Palm Springs.

Abdul enrolled at California State University at Northridge to study broadcasting. In her freshman year, she tried out for the Los Angeles Lakers' famed Laker Girls squad and was selected from a pool of 700. Within three months she became head choreographer. She quit school six months later.


Dance and choreography

Abdul's high-energy, street-funk style delighted fans, including the Jackson family, who saw her perform at a game and hired the 20-year-old to choreograph a music video for their 1984 Victory (album).

Abdul went on to choreograph 1980s videos for singer Janet Jackson. She also choreographed music videos for Duran Duran, Heart, Prince, The Jacksons, Jermaine Jackson, Kool & the Gang, the Pointer Sisters, Steve Winwood, Luther Vandross, INXS, Debbie Gibson, ZZ Top, George Michael and Dolly Parton. She choreographed and appeared in the videos for Toto's "Till The End", Michael Jackson's "Liberian Girl", Janet Jackson's "What Have You Done For Me Lately" and "Nasty" and Angela Winbush's "Run to Me". She also choreographed stage shows for Suzanne Somers and Toni Basil.

In film, Abdul choreographed the dance sequences in the films Coming to America, The Running Man and American Beauty, as well as Cuba Gooding Jr.'s touchdown celebration in Jerry Maguire, the giant keyboard sequence involving Tom Hanks' character in Big, and The King's touchdown celebration, as seen in a string of popular Burger King television commercials that aired during the 2005-2006 NFL season.

In 1995, Abdul released a dance workout video entitled Paula Abdul's Get Up and Dance! (released on DVD in 2003), a fast-paced, hip-hop style workout. Subsequently she released another dance workout video in 1998 called Cardio Dance (released on DVD in 2000). In December 2005, Abdul launched a cheerleading/fitness/dance/dance DVD series called Cardio Cheer, which is marketed to children and teenage girls involved with cheerleading and dance.


1987-1990

Paula Abdul's successful debut album brought her widespread public attention.In 1987 Abdul used her savings to make a singing demo. Although her voice was relatively untrained, her exceptional dancing proved marketable to the visually oriented, MTV-driven pop music industry.

In 1988, Abdul released her debut album Forever Your Girl. The album took 62 weeks to hit #1 on the Billboard 200 album sales chart, the longest an album has been on the market before hitting #1. It spent 10 weeks at #1. The album eventually became multi-platinum in the spring and summer of 1989 and it spawned five American Top Three singles, four of them #1s: "Straight Up", "Forever Your Girl", "Cold Hearted", "(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me", and "Opposites Attract". Forever Your Girl was the first debut album ever to have four number one singles. A remix album, Shut Up and Dance, was also released and reached #7 on Billboard's album chart, becoming one of the most successful remix albums to date. The Grammy award-winning video for "Opposites Attract" featured an animated cat named MC Skat Kat. As a sign of Paula's enormous popularity, the cartoon cat scored his own record deal later that year, becoming the first artist signed to Abdul's own Captive Records. Abdul's voice was sampled on one track and she appeared in the video for the first single.

Abdul also went on a Club MTV tour where she performed the songs off her album. Several other acts were also on the tour. Overall the tour helped raise Abdul's popularity even more.


1991-1992

Abdul's follow-up album, 1991's Spellbound, contained another string of hits, and went on to sell 8.5 million copies. Hits included "Rush, Rush" (which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for five consecutive weeks, thanks to its music video and its Rebel Without a Cause motif featuring Keanu Reeves in the James Dean role), "Promise of a New Day", "Blowing Kisses in the Wind", "Vibeology", and "Will You Marry Me?". The first single, "Rush, Rush", was a ballad, which surprised many, as singers generally release an up-tempo song as a first single. The album Spellbound retained much of the dance-oriented formula heard on her debut album. The track "U" was written for Paula by Prince.

Abdul promoted the album through a tour called "Under My Spell Tour." This tour almost didn't happen because of an accident during rehearsal that was bad enough she almost had to cancel the tour. The tour went as scheduled anyway and ran from October 1991 to the summer of 1992.

Also in 1991, Abdul made a popular Diet Coke commercial in which through technology she danced with her idol, a young Gene Kelly.[4]

Abdul took a break from recording and resurfaced in 1995 with an exercise video, Get Up and Dance.


1995-1996

In 1995 Abdul released her third album of original material, Head Over Heels. Modest radio hits with the singles "My Love Is for Real", "Crazy Cool", and "Ain't Never Gonna Give You Up" showed that she was still able to create popular music while moving with the times. The first single off the album, "My Love Is for Real", featured a fusion of R&B and traditional Middle Eastern instruments, and was sung together with Yemenite-Israeli singer Ofra Haza. Its accompanying Lawrence of Arabia-inspired music video was played in theaters across the world as a preface to the film Clueless. It was a hit in dance clubs (peaking at #1 on Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart) but the single stalled at #28 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The second single, "Crazy Cool", was accompanied by a music video wherein Abdul is seen riding a mechanical bull and spraying Champagne over her breasts.

Virgin Records, possibly counting on name recognition to move copies, did not put nearly as much muscle behind promoting the album, and Head Over Heels sold considerably less than her previous albums.

Although the album was commercially less successful, some fans considered it to be her best work to date.[citation needed] Some speculate that the album didn't sell well because of the amount of time taken between albums and the change in radio tastes in the mid-90s.[original research?]


2000s

In 2000, Abdul's Paula Abdul: Greatest Hits CD was released by Virgin Records (with whom Abdul was already no longer affiliated). It featured all of the "hit" singles singles as well as other noteworthy tracks. The song "Bend Time Back 'Round" had previously been heard only on the 1993 soundtrack for the hit television series Beverly Hills 90210. The album was not a commercial success, however it managed to sell more than 1 million copies worldwide.

In 2000, Abdul co-wrote "Spinning Around", a dance-pop track intended to be the lead single off her new album. The album never materialised and "Spinning Around" was given to Kylie Minogue as a comeback single. The song became highly successful and re-launched Minogue's career, as it was intended to do for Abdul, and reached #1 in numerous countries.

A second greatest-hits CD, entitled Greatest Hits: Straight Up!, was released by Virgin on May 8, 2007. The track listing is slightly different but, again, this album was put together by Virgin Records who no longer employs Abdul but nonetheless hopes to cash in on her American Idol success. At this time, they also released the music videos to all her six #1 singles to iTunes. She is also reportedly meeting with new record companies, to bounce around ideas for a new album.[citation needed]


Acting

Abdul appeared as Sherri in the 1978 low-budget musical film Junior High School. She also appeared uncredited in the 1987 film Can't Buy Me Love as a dancer.[5] In the late 1990s, she attempted to revitalize her career as a performer by accepting acting roles, starting with the 1997 television movie Touched by Evil, which she played a woman who discovers her boyfriend was her rapist. The film was rejected by both fans and critics. She later played Amy Fuentes in the 1998 made-for-TV film, The Waiting Game, which was released only in the UK, and received moderate reaction from viewers.[6] She also appeared in several TV shows including The Wayans Brothers and Spin City as well as the ABC Family made-for-TV movie Romy and Michele: In the Beginning. In 2007, Abdul signed on to produce and star in Bratz, based on the popular line of dolls.[7] She also had a small part in an episode of the Disney Channel hit show That's so Raven as a talent scout.


American Idol

In 2002, Abdul appeared as one of three judges for the reality television music competition show American Idol. Abdul, along with fellow judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson, was to evaluate the talent of a large group of young amateur singers, eliminate most of them in various audition rounds, and then judge the finalists as American television viewers voted on which finalists would continue to each successive round, until all but the winner were eliminated. Abdul won praise as a sympathetic and compassionate judge. She seemed especially kind when her critiques were compared against those of fellow judge Simon Cowell, who was often very blunt in his appraisals of the contestants' performances. When she realized that Cowell's over-the-top judging style was heartbreaking for many young contestants, Abdul was so horrified, she considered leaving the show. Although their differences often resulted in extremely heated on-air exchanges and confrontations, Cowell says he played a major role in convincing Abdul not to walk off.[8] Now a bonafide television celebrity, Abdul accepted a second gig as reporter for Entertainment Tonight. She continued to attract attention during subsequent seasons of American Idol. Her knack of finding something positive in almost every performance, her emotion-laden praise for contestants whose style she really likes, and her unique fingers-bent-outwards handclapping style have feuled the belief among some that she is drunk during auditons. This rumor has been the subject of satire, especially by Amy Poehler on Saturday Night Live sketches.

In May 2005, ABC's news magazine Primetime Live reported claims by Season 2 Idol contestant Corey Clark that he and Abdul had an affair during that season, and that she had coached him on how to succeed in the competition. The fact that Clark came forward at a time when he was marketing a CD and trying to get a book deal was seen as suspicious by some, but Clark maintains that his career was being black balled because of his relationship with Abdul and that's why he came forward with the information to clear his name of what idol said he was disqualified for previously. For the most part, Abdul refused to comment on Clark's allegations. At the height of the debacle, Abdul appeared in a Saturday Night Live skit, making light of the situation.[9] While Fox launched an investigation, Abdul received numerous calls of support from celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey; Barbara Walters even addressed the camera during an episode of ABC's The View to say she was ashamed to be part of an operation that would report Clark's flimsy tabloid claims under the guise of a news story.

In August 2005 the Fox network confirmed that she would be returning to the show, as the investigation had found "insufficient evidence that the communications between Mr. Clark and Ms. Abdul in any way aided his performance."[10]

On March 28, 2006 FOX announced that Abdul had signed to stay on American Idol as a judge for at least 3 more years.

The week of May 14th to 18th, 2007 (the week before the season 6 finale), Abdul broke her nose when she tried to "avoid tripping over her pet chihuahua". She was present at the May 22nd performance and May 23rd finale. It has been suggested that Abdul actually didn't break her nose because of the chihuahua incident, but rather her throwing a glass at a nearby wall, proof behind this allegation has not yet been admitted to the general public or media.


Hey Paula

Bravo announced a reality television series following Abdul through her day-to-day life. The series is produced by Scott Sternberg Productions and is scheduled to debut June 28, 2007.[11]


Paula Abdul Jewelry

Abdul's American Idol wardrobe often includes a number of necklaces, rings, bracelets, and earrings that she designs, and she often gives show contestants custom-designed jewelry . In 2007, Paula Abdul Jewelry launched its nationwide consumer debut on QVC, with the tagline "Fashion jewelry designed with heart and soul".[12] Paula's first QVC appearance resulted in 15 sellouts of her first jewelry collection, involving more than 34,000 pieces .[13] and of Mizrahi and Ashkenazi descent, she bears an Arabic surname and has frequently been mistaken as being part-black. Abdul told Ebony magazine: "I've had a lot of black kids come up to me and say, 'You are black! There's no way, no way [you are not black]', and that's all right with me."[3] African-American supermodel Tyra Banks recently admitted during Abdul's 2006 appearance on The Tyra Banks Show that she too had thought Abdul was black prior to their first meeting.[14]

Abdul was married to Emilio Estevez from April 29, 1992 to May 1994. In a June 19, 2005 interview with People magazine Abdul stated that they broke up over the issue of children; she wanted them to have a child together, while Estevez (who already had two children from a prior relationship) did not. She married sportswear designer Brad Beckerman in 1996; they divorced in 1998 citing irreconcilable differences.
Valentine's Day 2006, Abdul appeared on Dr. Phil as part of a primetime special on love and relationships. She was set up on two dates and Phil McGraw gave her advice.
Having recovered from her eating disorder after treatment in 1994, she later became a spokeswoman for NEDA, and was presented with the Profiles In Living Award in late 2005. She continued her work by recording Public Service Announcements in 2006.
In April 2005, she revealed that she suffers from a rare neurological disorder called complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) that causes chronic pain.[15]

On Judaism and Israel

Paula is proud of her Jewish religion. She has said, "Not many people know, but both my parents are Jewish, I am very excited about telling you this." She has said that it was her dream to visit Israel and said, "My father is a Syrian Jew whose family immigrated to Brazil. My mother is Canadian with Jewish roots. My dream is to come to Israel for a real holiday." Israeli Tourist Minister Isaac Herzog invited her to Israel during a Hanukkah festival, to which Abdul responded with a hug, adding, "I will come; you have helped make a dream come true."[2]


Court and legal

On December 20, 2004, Abdul was driving her Mercedes on an L.A.-area freeway when she changed lanes and hit another vehicle. The driver and passenger snapped a photograph with a cell phone camera and wrote down the license plate number of the car, which was traced to Abdul. On March 24, 2005, Abdul was fined USD $900 and given 24 months of informal probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor hit-and-run driving in Los Angeles. In addition to the fines she was ordered to pay USD $775 for damage to the other car.[16]
April 4, 2006, Abdul filed a report at a Hollywood police station claiming she had been a victim of battery at a private party at about 1 a.m. April 2, according to L.A.P.D. spokesman police Lt. Paul Vernon. "According to Abdul, the man at the party argued with her, grabbed her by the arm and threw her against a wall", Vernon said. "She said she had sustained a concussion and spinal injuries."[17]

Substance abuse allegations

Substance abuse allegations arose as the result of what some described as "erratic behavior"[18] by Abdul during episodes of American Idol. After reading these allegations on message boards, Abdul told People magazine in April 2005 that she suffered from chronic pain for years following a cheerleading accident at age 17 and was diagnosed with reflex sympathetic dystrophy in November 2004.[18] Abdul says she is now pain-free following treatment, including the anti-inflammatory medication Enbrel.[18]

Allegations arose again in January 2007 when videos circulated on the Internet of Abdul appearing to sway in her chair and slur her speech during a set of interviews.[19] Abdul's publicist attributed this to fatigue and technical difficulties during the recording of the interviews.[19]

In February 2007, Abdul told Us Weekly that she had never been drunk or used illegal drugs, and called the allegations "lies."[20] In a March 2007 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, Abdul joked that her scrutinized behavior was caused by her being "abducted by aliens."[21]

PERKS OF BEING OVER 50

1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.

2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.

3. No one expects you to run--anywhere.

4. People call at 9 PM and ask, "Did I wake you?"

5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.

6. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.

7. Things you buy now won't wear out.

8. You can eat supper at 4 PM.

9. You can live without sex but not your glasses.

10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.

11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.

12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room.

13. You sing along with elevator music.

14. Your eyes won't get much worse.

15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to payoff.

16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.

17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.

18. Your supply of brain cells are finally down to manageable size.

19. You can't remember who sent you this list .

Well, folks, we know that our Boston Bob is through with his marvelous bio's when he reminds us of our age. What was on that list again, hawkman?

Until you know who does you know what, let's listen to a song from Paula.


Eagle's calling
And he's calling your name
Tides are turning
Bringing winds of change
Why do I feel this way
The promise of a new day

Chorus:
The promise
The promise of a new day
As thru time
The earth moves
Under my feet
One step closer
To make love complete
What has the final say
The promise of a new day

Chorus x2

And so time over time
What will change the world
No one knows
So the only promise
Is a day to live, to give
And share with one another
See the wisdom from mistakes in our past
Hear the younger gerneration ask
Why do I feel this way
The promise of a new day

Chorus x2

And so time over time
What will change the world
No one knows
So the only promise
Is a day to live, to give
And share with one another

Speaking of sharing, listeners, today is ehBeth's birthday.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2717477#2717477

Have a great one, honey.

Good Morning WA2K.

Today's birthday gallery:






And a Happy Birthday to ehBeth.

Well, folks, our Raggedy just did "you know what." Thanks PA. Great faces today.

Hmmm, folks, there are some that I don't know, I'm afraid, but I find it very strange that Louis Jourdan is featured, as we speak, in Madam Bovary on TCM. Great looking Frenchman, no?

Perhaps our puppy will name them for us. Until then, Let's hear this song.

Incubus


I dig my toes into the sand
The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds
Strewn across a blue blanket
I lean against the wind
Pretend that I am weightless
And in this moment I am happy...happy

I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were here

I lay my head onto the sand
The sky resembles a backlit canopy
With holes punched in it
I'm counting UFOs
I signal them with my lighter
And in this moment I am happy...happy

I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
Wish you were here

The world's a roller coaster
And I am not strapped in
Maybe I should hold with care
But my hands are busy in the air saying:

I wish you were here
I wish you were

I wish you were here
I wish you were here
I wish you were here
Wish you were here

it's quite warm and sunny , so you may want to wait a few hours before breaking out into a song ...

here is another tune that may have to wait until sundown ... but you are welcome to practice - particularly the dancesteps !
hbg