WA2K Radio is now on the air

even though the sun is setting , here is :



i never get tired listening to LOUIS !
hbg

Well, hamburger, He is Mr. Jazz, and I love that song. It was my next door neighbor's favorite. He happened to be Irish, and played great drums.

Guess it's time for me to say goodnight, folks. So let's do a dream song.

Love laughs at a king, kings don't mean a thing on the street of dreams
Dreams broken in two can be made like new on the street of dreams

Oh, silver and gold
All you can hold is in the moonlight

For no one is poor
Long as love is sure on the street of dreams

A gentle goodnight to all
From Letty with love

All along the watchtower

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

Bob Dylan

Stormy
Classics IV

[Written by Perry "Buddy" C Buien and James R Cobb]

You were the sunshine, baby,
Whenever you smiled
But I call you Stormy today
All of a sudden that ole rain's fallin' down
And my world is cloudy and gray
You've gone away
Oh Stormy, oh Stormy
Bring back that sunny day

Yesterday's love was like a warm summer breeze
But, like the weather ya changed
Now things are dreary, baby
And it's windy and cold
And I stand alone in the rain
Callin' your name
Oh Stormy, oh Stormy
Bring back that sunny day

---- Instrumental Interlude ----

Oh Stormy, oh Stormy
Bring back that sunny day
Bring back that sunny day
Oh Stormy
Oh Stormy

And, my own lament:





When I woke up this morning
I had just one hour on my bed
When I got up this morning
Feeling like I almost was dead
When I got dressed this morning
I looked down at my wife and I said

I got the Maintenance Man Blues this morning
Don`t expect no kiss good-bye
Because I ain`t never been quit working
To tell you good-bye would be a lie

I spent last night bailing water
Cause the water tank it broke
I spent last night moving furniture
Cause it all so water soak
I spent last night pulling carpet
While the resident screaming like to croak

I got the Maintenance Man Blues this morning
Don`t expect no kiss good-bye
Because I ain`t never been quit working
To tell you good-bye would be a lie

I got to paint six apartments
While changing air condition machine
I got to make ready those apartments
While making swimming pool clean
I got to even shampoo those apartments
Why the boss man so doggone mean

That`s why I got the Maintenance Man Blues this morning
So don`t expect no kiss good-bye
Because I ain`t never been quit working
To tell you good-bye would be a big fat lie

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

Behind the still, unruffled palm the struggling rose of light's decay
Tells us that the dawn is here
The alpha of another day.

Rex, that song by Dylan has hidden allusions, Maine. T.S. Eliot perhaps? Like it, however cryptic it may be.

edgar, I truly understand your lament; that song says so much. Thanks, buddy, and your Stormy song matches it in a way.

In trying to locate the words to Blue Tango, I was surprised to find there is a Francis Bacon that was a painter, and the subject of The Last Tango in Paris.

"He was hatched fully formed"

My song for the morning, folks.

Sweet Nothings
Last Tango

Flew into existence, just a sweet bird of youth.
Hugged my friends on the pavement,
Hid my dreams on the roof.
Wrapped in a blanket from the national health.
It isn't money but then what is wealth?

My dad he left me back in '56,
The moon got tilted and the sadness was mixed.
My mother loved me, but she couldn't do much,
She brought her kids up in a rabbit hutch.
Well it feels all right,


Chuck berry riffing drove me into my teens,
The way I swaggered it was pure james dean.
In indo china things were getting hot,
I found the answer on a used car lot.

The sun gets murdered as we hold back the night,
The road's a river, but it feels alright.
Route signals flashing and the border's gone,
I'm rolling southward to a maggie bell song.

Hey! Who says weird has to be bad.

Jerry Lee Lewis - Break My Mind
(Haggard)

Baby, oh! Baby
Tell the man at the ticket stand
That you've changed your mind
Let me run on out and tell the cab
To keep his meter flyin'
Or did you say goodbye to me
Babe, you're gonna break my mind

Break my mind
Break my mind
Oh! I just can't stand
To hear them big jet engines whine
Break my mind
Break my mind, oh! Lord
If you leave you're gonna leave
A babblin' fool behind

Baby, I say, Baby
Let me take your suitcase
Off of them scales in time
Tell the man that you suddenly developed
A thing about flyin', flyin'
'Cause if you say goodbye to me, Baby
You know you?re gonna break my mind

Break my mind
Break my mind
Oh! I just can't stand
To hear them big jet engines whine
Break my mind
Break my mind, oh! Lord
If you leave you're gonna leave
A babblin' fool behind

Break my mind
Break my mind
Oh! I just can't stand
To hear them big jet engines whine
Break my mind
Break my mind, oh! Lord
If you leave you're gonna leave
A babblin' fool behind

and, edgar, Breaking news to match your Jerry Lee song.

195 feared dead in Brazil plane crash By ALAN CLENDENNING, Associated Press Writer
28 minutes ago



SAO PAULO, Brazil - Rescue crews pulled dozens of bodies Wednesday from a Brazilian airliner that crashed and burst into flames at Brazil's busiest airport, as the number of people feared dead rose to 195.


The TAM airlines Airbus-320 was en route to Sao Paulo from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil on Tuesday when it skidded on the rain-slicked runway in Sao Paulo, barreled across a busy road and slammed into a gas station and TAM building.

The rest of the story here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070718/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_plane_crash.

Back later, folks. Breakfast awaits.

a big howdy to my buddy edgar...down in Texas from George Strait

All my ex's live in Texas
and Texas is the place I'd dearly love to be
but all my ex's live in Texas
and that's why I hang my hat in Tennessee

Rosanna's down in Texarkana
wanted me to push her broom
Sweet Eileen's in Abilene
She forgot I hung the moon
and Allison's in Galveston
somehow lost her sanity
and Dimple's who now lives in Temple's<a
got the law looking for me



I remember that old Frio River
where I learned to swim
but it brings to mind another time
where I wore my welcome thin
By transcendental meditation
I go there each night
but I always come back to myself
long before daylight
[All My Ex's Live In Texas Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com]

All my ex's live in Texas
and Texas is the place Id dearly love to be
but all my ex's live in Texas
therefore I reside in Tennessee

Some folks think I'm hidin'
It's been rumored that I died
but I'm alive and well in Tennessee

Morning, panz. Looks as though we are doing state songs today, folks.

How about one from Florida.

West Palm Beach by the Palace Brothers

I can't get the sand out of my shoes
Being in Florida has done a number on my blues
Just the way the women walk round' here
Well it's plain to see the way the sand and sea
Have done a number on me

And the sky is threatening black and gray
And the sun's a festering red
And her head is claiming her status,
She had risen from bed
So breakfast, again
Delayed, postponed, I won't be fed

The surf has swallowed him up, he's a memory now
The water is warmer then it has been for weeks
Grandma lives just down the road
She making supper for me tonight
She's been nice to me since '73
When her son lost his life

And now his ghost is a rising host
Above the blinding blur
I would have assume some maid would swoon
And his soul would capture her
He's still a fine kid,
What with all that he did,
He's a fan of mine

I wasn't planning to spend so long in town
But the break in the weather
Has got the partner down
She won't get out, her shotgun
Seems she's sewn to the seat
It's a dirty old trick that I'm yet to lick
And she's yet to beat.
And you can see it in her eyes
She was born unwise
She was born for me
And she mourns too long
I'll know something is wrong
And I'll leave her be
I can see it in his shoes,
He was born to lose
He was born for me

I had to alter those lyrics so that they would make some sense, and they still didn't make sense. Love it!

Lupe Vélez
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lupe Vélez (July 18, 1908 - December 13, 1944) was a Mexican American actress.




Early life

Velez was born María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez in the city of San Luis Potosí. Her father refused to let her use his last name in theater, so she used her mother's maiden name. Lupe was educated at a convent school in Texas before finding work as a sales assistant. She took dancing lessons and in 1924 made her performing debut at the Teatro Principal. She moved to California that year and was first cast in movies by Hal Roach.


Film career

Her first feature-length film was Douglas Fairbanks's The Gaucho (1927); the next year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, the young starlets deemed to be most promising for movie stardom. Most of her early films cast her in exotic or ethnic roles (Hispanic, Native American, French, Russian, even Asian).

Within a few years she found her niche in comedies, playing beautiful but volatile foils to comedy stars. Her slapstick battle with Laurel and Hardy in Hollywood Party and her dynamic presence opposite Jimmy Durante in Palooka (both 1934) are typically enthusiastic Velez performances. She was featured in the final Wheeler & Woolsey comedy, High Flyers (1937), doing vicious impersonations of Simone Simon, Dolores del Rio, and Shirley Temple.

Velez was now nearing 30, and hadn't become a major star. Disappointed, she left Hollywood for Broadway (co-starring in "You Never Know," a short-lived Cole Porter musical) and for film work in other countries. Returning to Hollywood in 1939, she snared the lead in a B comedy for RKO Radio Pictures, The Girl from Mexico. She established such a rapport with co-star Leon Errol that RKO made a quick sequel, Mexican Spitfire, which became a very popular series. Velez perfected her comic character, indulging in broken-English malaprops, troublemaking ideas, and sudden fits of temper bursting into torrents of Spanish invective. She occasionally sang in these films, and often displayed a talent for hectic, visual comedy. Velez obviously enjoyed making these films and can be seen openly breaking up at Leon Errol's comic ad libs.

The Spitfire films rejuvenated Lupe Velez's career, and for the next few years she starred in musical and comedy features for RKO, Universal Pictures, and Columbia Pictures in addition to her Spitfires. She was very popular with Spanish audiences, and lent her services toward improving the film industry in Mexico.


Romances

Emotionally generous, passionate, and high-spirited, she had a number of highly publicized affairs before marrying Olympic athlete Johnny Weissmuller (of 'Tarzan' fame) in 1933. The fraught marriage lasted five years; they repeatedly split and finally divorced in 1938. She went on to have another emotionally draining affair, this time with Gary Cooper. In 1943 she returned to Mexico and starred in an adaptation of Emile Zola's Nana (1944), which was well received. Subsequently she returned to Hollywood.


Death

In the mid-1940s she had a relationship with the married actor Harald Maresch, and became pregnant with his child. Maresch would not leave his wife, and Lupe, following her Catholic upbringing, refused to have an abortion. Unable to face the shame of giving birth to an illegitimate child, she decided to take her own life. Her suicide note read, "To Harald, may God forgive you and forgive me too but I prefer to take my life away and our baby's before I bring him with shame or killing him, Lupe."

She retired to bed after taking an overdose of secobarbital, but instead of sending her to sleep the drug upset her stomach, and she was actually found dead in her bathroom. According to fellow actress Irene Gibbons Lupe drowned in the toilet.[1]

Her suicide and the circumstances surrounding it have spawned a cruel yet grimly amusing story, made into a film by Andy Warhol in 1965 as Lupe, and repeated as an elaborate anecdote in step-by-step detail by the 'Roz' character in the pilot episode of the television series Frasier and is briefly mentioned in The Simpsons episode "Homer's Phobia".

Harriet Nelson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Harriet Nelson (née Hilliard) was an American singer and actress.

Born Peggy Lou Snyder in Des Moines, Iowa on July 18, 1909, to Roy Hilliard Snyder and Hazel Dell McNutt. By 1932, she was performing in vaudeville when she met the saxophone-playing Ozzie Nelson and was hired by him as vocalist for his orchestra.

They married three years later and with him and their children, Eric "Ricky" Nelson and David Nelson, she starred in the highly popular radio and television series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet between 1944 and 1966 and it is that for which she is best known, despite the movies and singing career.

In the 1980s she lived in Laguna Beach, Calif.

She died of congestive heart failure on October 2, 1994, at the age of 85.

She is interred with her husband and younger son Ricky (who died in a plane crash) in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Red Skelton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Richard Bernard Skelton
Born July 18, 1913
Vincennes, Indiana
Died September 17, 1997
Palm Springs, California
Show Red Skelton Show
Station(s) NBC, CBS
Style Comedian
Country United States

Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton (July 18, 1913 - September 17, 1997) was an American comedian who was best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, clubs and casinos, while pursuing another career as a painter.





Early life

Born in Vincennes, Indiana, Skelton was the son of a Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus clown named Joe who died in 1913 shortly before the birth of his son. Skelton himself got one of his earliest tastes of show business with the same circus as a teenager. Before that, however, he had been given the show business bug at age ten by entertainer Ed Wynn, who spotted him selling newspapers in front of the Pantheon Theatre, in Vincennes, Indiana, trying to help his family. After buying every newspaper in Skelton's stock, Wynn took the boy backstage and introduced him to every member of the show with which he was traveling. By age 15, Skelton had hit the road full-time as an entertainer, working everywhere from medicine shows and vaudeville to burlesque, showboats, minstrel shows and circuses.


Films

While performing in Kansas City in 1930, Skelton met and married his first wife, Edna Stillwell. The couple divorced 13 years later, but they remained cordial enough that Stillwell remained one of his chief writers. Seven years after their marriage, Skelton caught his big break in two media at once: radio and film. Beginning with Having Wonderful Time (1938), Skelton appeared in more than 30 MGM films during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1945, he married Georgia Davis; the couple had two children, Richard and Valentina; Richard's childhood death of leukemia devastated the household. Red and Georgia divorced in 1971, and he remarried. In 1976, Georgia committed suicide by gunshot. Deeply wounded by the loss of his wife, Red would abstain from performing for the next decade and a half, finding solace only in painting clowns.


Radio

After 1937 appearances on The Rudy Vallee Show, Skelton became a regular in 1939 on NBC's Avalon Time, sponsored by Avalon Cigarettes. On October 7, 1941, Skelton premiered his own radio show, The Raleigh Cigarette Program, developing routines involving a number of recurring characters, including punch-drunk boxer Cauliflower McPugg, inebriated Willie Lump-Lump and "mean widdle kid" Junior, whose favorite phrase ("I dood it!") became part of the American lexicon. There was con man San Fernando Red with his pair of crosseyed seagulls, Gertrude and Heathcliffe, and singing cabdriver Clem Kadiddlehopper, a country bumpkin with a big heart and a slow wit. Clem had an unintentional knack for upstaging high society slickers, even if he couldn't manipulate his cynical father: "When the stork brought you, Clem, I shoulda shot him on sight!" Skelton also helped sell WWII war bonds on the top-rated show, which featured Ozzie and Harriet Nelson in the supporting cast, plus the Ozzie Nelson Orchestra and announcer Truman Bradley. Harriet Nelson was the show's vocalist.

Skelton was drafted in March 1944, and the popular series was discontinued June 6, 1944. Shipped overseas to serve with an Army entertainment unit as a private, Skelton had a nervous breakdown in Italy, spent three months in a hospital and was discharged in September, 1945. He once joked about his military career, "I was the only celebrity who went in and came out a private." On December 4, 1945, The Raleigh Cigarette Program resumed where it left off with Skelton introducing some new characters, including Bolivar Shagnasty and J. Newton Numbskull. Lurene Tuttle and Verna Felton appeared as Junior's mother and grandmother. David Forrester and David Rose led the orchestra, featuring vocalist Anita Ellis. The announcers were Pat McGeehan and Rod O'Connor. The series ended May 20, 1949, and that fall he moved to CBS. Ironically, given that his peak of popularity came with his television show, in recent years recordings of the Red Skelton radio show have become much easier to come by than the TV show.


Television

In 1951 (the same year the network introduced I Love Lucy), CBS beckoned Skelton to bring his radio show to television. His characters worked even better on screen than on radio; television also provoked him to create his second best-remembered character, Freddie the Freeloader, a traditional tramp whose appearance suggested the elder brother of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus clown Emmett Kelly. Skelton's weekly signoff -- "Good night and may God bless" -- became as familiar to television viewers as Edward R. Murrow's "Good night and good luck" or Walter Cronkite's "And that's the way it is."

Skelton was the first CBS television host to begin taping his weekly programs in color, in the early 1960s, after he bought an old movie studio and converted it for television productions. He tried to encourage CBS to tape other shows in color at the facility, although most shows were taped in black and white at Television City near the famous Farmers Market in Los Angeles. However, CBS boss William Paley had generally given up on color television after the network's unsuccessful efforts to receive FCC approval for their "color wheel" system (developed by inventor Peter Goldmark) in the early 1950s. Although CBS occasionally would use NBC facilities for specials in color, the network avoided color programming until the fall of 1965, when both NBC and ABC began televising most of their programs in RCA's compatible color process. By that time, Skelton had abandoned his own studio and moved to Television City, where he resumed color programs until he left the network.

Skelton was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1989, but as Kadiddlehopper showed, he was more than an interpretive clown. One of his best-known routines was "The Pledge of Allegiance," in which he explained the pledge word by word. Another Skelton staple, a pantomime of the crowd at a small town parade as the American flag passes by, reflected Skelton's rural, Americana tastes.

In his autobiography Groucho And Me, Groucho Marx, in asserting that comic acting is much more difficult than straight acting, rated Red Skelton's acting ability highly and considered him a worthy successor to Charles Chaplin. One of the last known on-camera interviews with Skelton was conducted by Steven F. Zambo. A small portion of this interview can be seen in the 2005 PBS special The Pioneers of Primetime.


Off the air

Skelton kept his high television ratings into 1970, but he ran into two problems with CBS: demographics showed he no longer appealed to younger viewers, and his contracted annual salary raises grew disproportionately thanks to inflation. Since CBS had earlier decided to keep another longtime favorite, Gunsmoke, whose appeal was strictly to older audiences, it's possible that without Skelton's inflationary contract raises he might have been kept on the air a few more years. He moved to NBC in 1971 for one season in a half-hour Monday night version of his show, then ended his long television career after being canceled.

Skelton was said to be bitter about CBS's cancellation for many years to follow. Ignoring the demographics and salary issues, he bitterly accused CBS of caving in to the anti-establishment, anti-war faction at the height of the Vietnam War, saying his patriotism and traditional values caused CBS to turn against him. Skelton invited prominent Republicans, including Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and Senate Republican Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen, to appear on his program.

When he was presented with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Governor's Award in 1986, he received a standing ovation. "I want to thank you for sitting down," Skelton said when the ovation subsided. "I thought you were pulling a CBS and walking out on me."


Aftermath

Skelton returned to live performance after his television days ended, in nightclubs and casinos and resorts, as well as performing such venues as Carnegie Hall. Many of those shows yielded segments that were edited into part of the Funny Faces video series on HBO's Standing Room Only. He also spent more time on his lifetime love of painting, usually of clown images, and his works began to attract prices over $80,000.

In Death Valley Junction, California, circus performers painted by Marta Becket decorate the Red Skelton Room in the 23-room Amargosa Hotel, where Skelton stayed four times. The room is dedicated to Skelton, as explained by John Mulvihill in his essay "Lost Highway Hotel":

Marta Becket is the magic behind the Amargosa Hotel. For the past 32 years it has provided both a home and a venue for her lifetime ambition: to perform her dance and pantomime works to paying audiences. Since 1968 she's been doing just that, twice a week, audiences or no. The hotel guest's first encounter with Marta is through her paintings in the lobby and dining area. Once she and her husband had upgraded the structure of the hotel and theatre, she make them unique by painting their walls with shimmering frescoes (not real frescoes but the effect is the same) in a style uniquely hers. Some of the paintings are deceptively three-dimensional, like the guitar leaning against a wall that you don't realize is a painting until you reach to pick it up. Some are evocative of carnival art from the early part of this century. All are vibrant, whimsical. If you're lucky, your room will be graced with similar wall paintings. Room 22 is where Red Skelton used to stay. He visited once to catch Marta's show, and like so many others, fell victim to the Amargosa's enchantment and returned again and again. He asked Marta to illustrate his room with circus performers and though he died shortly thereafter, she did so anyway. Staying in this room, with acrobats scaling the walls and trapeze artists flying from the ceiling, is a singularly evocative experience, one I wouldn't trade for a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. [1]
Near the end of his life, Skelton said his daily routine included writing a short story a day. He collected the best stories in self-published chapbooks. He also composed music which he sold to background music services such as Muzak). Among his more notable compositions was his patriotic "Red's White and Blue March."

Red Skelton died in a hospital in Palm Springs, California of pneumonia on September 17, 1997. At the time of his death, he lived in Anza, California. He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

In 2002 during the controversy of the phrase "Under God" in the US Pledge of Allegiance, a recording of a monologue he performed on his 1969 television show resurfaced. In the speech, he commented on what each line of the pledge symbolizes. At the end, he commented that "Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too?" With the pledge under attack as being "religious", he suddenly regained popularity among those who opposed the lawsuit.

The Red Skelton Bridge spans the Wabash River and provides the highway link between Illinois and Indiana on Highway 50, near his hometown of Vincennes, Indiana. The Red Skelton Performing Arts Center on the Vincennes University campus was constructed in 2006. On May 17, 2006, the Vincennes Sun-Commercial reported that a non-profit group in Red's hometown of Vincennes, began to renovate the historic Pantheon Theater. According to the article, the stage at the Pantheon will be named in honor of Red Skelton

James Brolin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born July 18, 1940 (1940-07-18) (age 66)
Los Angeles, California, USA
Spouse(s) Barbra Streisand (m. Jul 1 1998, present)
Jan Smithers (m. 1986 div. 1995) 1 daughter
Jane Cameron Agee (m. 1966 div. 1984) 2 sons
Official site Website
Notable roles Dr. Steven Kiley in Marcus Welby, M.D.
Ronald Reagan in The Reagans
Peter McDermott in Hotel
Lt. Colonel Bill "Raven" Kelly in Pensacola: Wings of Gold

James Brolin (born July 18, 1940) is a two-time Golden Globe Award-winning and Emmy Award-winning American television, film, character actor, producer, and director.




Biography

Early life

The elder of two brothers, Brolin was born Craig Kenneth Bruderlin[1] in Los Angeles, California to Henry Bruderlin, a building contractor, and Helen Sue Mansur, a homemaker.[2] The family settled in Westwood after his birth. As a young child, he was apparently more interested in animals and airplanes, than he was in acting. When young Bruderlin was 10 in 1950, he began building model airplanes and was taught to fly them. As a teenaged moviegoer in the mid-1950s he was particularly fascinated with actor James Dean. When his parents invited a director over to his family's house for dinner before auditioning, he met another fellow actor and classmate, Ryan O'Neal, who was about a year younger than Brolin, and the two clicked. However, Bruderlin's own acting exposed his stifling shyness. His assurance grew when O'Neal invited him to a casting agency. Brolin graduated in 1958, and his family was already encouraging him to become an actor like O'Neal.


Early career

Prior to taking acting classes in school, Brolin started out as a character actor on an episode of Bus Stop in 1961. The part led to parts in other television productions such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Margie, Love, American Style, Twelve O'Clock High and The Long, Hot Summer. He made 3 guest appearances on the popular 1960s series Batman, alongside Adam West and Burt Ward, as well as roles in The Virginian, and Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law alongside Arthur Hill and Lee Majors. He also had a recurring role on the short-lived television series The Monroes.

At the age of 20 he changed his last name from Bruderlin to Brolin to become James Brolin. He accepted a contract with 20th Century Fox studios, where he took 5,000 hours of acting classes[citation needed]. While in school struggling to make it big, he met future young actor Clint Eastwood. Brolin also had small roles in several movies including Take Her, She's Mine (1963), Dear Brigitte (1965), Fantastic Voyage (1966). The following year, his first big role was in The Cape Town Affair (1967), but it did not receive any success at the box office. Brolin was ultimately fired by 20th Century Fox.


Film work

During the 1970s, Brolin began appearing in leading roles in films, including Skyjacked (1972), and Westworld (1973). By the mid-1970s, he was a regular leading man in films, starring in Gable and Lombard (1976), The Car (1977), Capricorn One (1978), High Risk (1981), and The Amityville Horror (1979). When Roger Moore expressed his desire to leave the role of James Bond, Brolin screen tested for the role in the next film Octopussy (1983). Ultimately, however, Moore decided to continue in the series.

In 1985, Brolin parodied his near-hiring as James Bond in the film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. In a film within the film, he merged the characters of Bond and Pee-Wee Herman, the "real" version of whom was played by Paul Reubens. He is referred to as "PW" and the role of Pee-Wee Herman's girlfriend "Dottie" is played by Morgan Fairchild.


Television roles

Brolin has starred in three television series in a career which has spanned four decades. He became widely-known for his roles as Robert Young's, youthful skilled and professional physician, Dr. Steven Kiley on Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969-1976), Peter McDermott on Hotel (1983-1988), and Lt. Col. Bill "Raven" Kelly on Pensacola: Wings of Gold (1997-2000). He also had a recurring role as Governor and presidential candidate Robert Ritchie in The West Wing.

In 1968, Brolin transferred to Universal Studios, where he auditioned for a co-starring role opposite longtime actor Robert Young in the popular medical drama Marcus Welby, M.D.. The series was one of the top-rated television shows of the day. Brolin won the role of Dr. Steven Kiley, a young doctor working with another more experienced doctor, and the chemistry between Brolin & Young clicked. In its first season in 1970, Brolin won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and was subsequently nominated three more times. He was also nominated for Golden Globes three times for Best Supporting Actor, and won twice between 1971 and 1973.

In 1983, Brolin returned to television to star in another popular series. He teamed up with producer Aaron Spelling for the pilot episode of a prime-time soap opera, Hotel, for ABC. On this show, he played Peter MacDermott, a hotel manager who tried to help everybody solve their own problems and to let love in his own life at the same time. Co-starring on the show was an unfamiliar actress, Shari Belafonte as Peter's receptionist, Julie Gillette, familiar actress, Connie Sellecca, as Brolin's promotions manager and later girlfriend, Christine Francis, and the late Nathan Cook as Billy Griffin, an ex-con who later became Peter's best friend. Together, they each had a wonderful chemistry with Brolin, on the set. As with Marcus Welby, this show was a ratings winner. In his first year, Brolin was nominated twice for Golden Globes between 1983 and 1984 for Best Performance By an Actor in a TV Series, but didn't win. He would also serve as a director on the show, giving him more input into the direction of the series. On one episode of Hotel, he even invited his future wife Jan Smithers to guest-star on the show as the writers suggested that they developed a storyline for them, as Brolin was going through a difficult divorce. By 1988, after 5 seasons, Hotel was about to close its doors for good and the show was cancelled. That same year, his co-star, Cook had died of an allergic reaction to penicillin, and Brolin among the rest of his cast attended his funeral.

Sellecca said of Brolin's on-screen chemistry with him on Hotel, "I remember instantly feeling comfortable with Jim, and that's the thing that Jim has is to women, most women, they need to feel safe, and Jim gets that." She also said, "To have him in a different role and have that confidence, it was a wonderful experience."

As the new decade approached, Brolin starred in both Angel Falls for CBS and Extreme for ABC, although neither matched the popularity of his earlier series.

In 1997, Brolin's luck changed with the syndicated television series Pensacola: Wings of Gold. He played the role of Lt. Col. Bill "Raven" Kelly, whose job was to teach young marines in a special unit, before being promoted to work with a group of talented Marine fighter pilots. Brolin served as an executive producer and director on the series. In 2000, however, the show was cancelled after 66 episodes due to low ratings.


Recent work

In late 2003, he was supposed to play Ronald Reagan in the TV movie The Reagans. After creative differences, bad scripts, and high rising costs, CBS decided to scrap The Reagans, but then chose to move it to cable channel Showtime, also owned by Viacom. Brolin was nominated for another Emmy Award, making it his fifth Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe making it also his fifth, although he didn't win. He co-starred with Jason Lee and Selma Blair in the comedy movie A Guy Thing (2003), and made two films in 2005, The Alibi and The American Standards.

In 2002, Brolin played Governor Robert Ritchie of Florida, the Republican opponent of President Jed Bartlet on the TV series The West Wing. In Bartlet's words, he'd "turned being unengaged into a Zen-like thing," and seemed to enjoy it. The character seemed to be a parody of real-life President George W. Bush, whose brother, John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, was then the real-life Governor of Florida.

In 2006, Brolin played the Governor of Maine, who in order to get re-elected, opposes the legalization of gay marriage, in the A&E Network movie Wedding Wars.


Personal life

He resides in Sherman Oaks, California with his wife, Barbra Streisand.

Brolin has been married three times. In 1966, he married Jane Cameron Agee, an aspiring actress at Twentieth Century Fox. The couple had 2 children, (Josh Brolin, b. February 12, 1968), and (Jesse, b. 1972). They were divorced in 1984, after 18 years of marriage. Jane died in a car accident on February 13, 1995, one day after son Josh's 27th birthday.

In 1985, he met Jan Smithers, an actress, on the set of Hotel, and they married in 1986. The couple had a daughter (Molly Elizabeth, born 1987). Jan Smithers filed for divorce from Brolin in 1995, a few weeks after the death of his first wife, Jane. In 1996, he met the singer and actress Barbra Streisand through a friend, and the two were married on July 1, 1998.

Brolin is a Democrat and supported John Kerry in the 2004 election. He has expressed his scepticism over official accounts of the September 11, 2001 attacks.[3]

Ricky Skaggs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ricky Lee Skaggs (born July 18, 1954, in Lawrence County, Kentucky) is a country and bluegrass singer, musician, producer, and composer. He plays fiddle, guitar, banjo, and, primarily, mandolin.

Skaggs' music career began in 1970 when he joined Ralph Stanley's famous bluegrass band, the Clinch Mountain Boys. For a few years, Skaggs was a member of Emmylou Harris's group, Hot Band. He wrote the arrangements for Harris's bluegrass-roots album, Roses in the Snow. In addition to arranging for Harris, Skaggs sang harmony and played mandolin and fiddle. In 2000, he shared the stage with the now defunct jam band, Phish.[citation needed]

Skaggs moved to Nashville in 1980 and was signed to Epic Records, where he produced his debut album, Waitin' For The Sun To Shine. The album produced four successful singles, including two number one hits with "Cryin' My Heart Out Over You" and "I Don't Care" in 1982. Many people say he rescued country music from the doldrums it had found itself in the 1970s. He was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry in 1982. He racked up 12 number one hits and 6 top ten singles during the 1980s. Skaggs picked up dozens of industry awards in the ensuing years, including four Grammy Awards and eight awards from the Country Music Association including Entertainer of the Year in 1985.

He married Sharon White of the family group The Whites in 1982. Together they have two children, a daughter Molly Kate and a son Lucas. Ricky also has a son, Andrew, from his first marriage.

He has made many fans due to his dedication to the traditional bluegrass style of music. "I always want to try to promote the old music, as well as trying to grow, and be a pioneer too," Skaggs once said.[citation needed] Because of this approach to his music, Skaggs has been considered to be the founding father of Neotraditional Country.

On March 20, 2007, Skaggs released an album with Bruce Hornsby.

Also in 2007, Skaggs is slated to release an album he recorded with The Whites on his Skaggs Family Records label.

Elizabeth McGovern
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born July 18, 1961 (1961-07-18)
Evanston, Illinois, United States
Spouse(s) Simon Curtis (1992 - present)
Academy Awards

Best Supporting Actress (Nominated)
1981 Ragtime
Golden Globe Awards

New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture (Nominated)
1981 Ragtime

Elizabeth McGovern (born July 18, 1961) is an American film and theater actress.



Biography

Early life

McGovern was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of Katharine Woolcot Watts, a high school teacher, and William Montgomery McGovern, a university professor.[1] Her family moved to Los Angeles, where her father accepted a position with UCLA. McGovern started acting in plays in high school. Agent Joan Scott saw her performance in The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder, was impressed by her talent, and recommended that she take acting lessons. McGovern followed her advice and studied, first at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and then at The Juilliard School in New York City.


Career

While studying at this school, she was offered in 1980 a part in her first movie, Ordinary People, in which she played the girlfriend of troubled teenager Timothy Hutton. It was also Robert Redford's first film as director. The movie won four Oscars. The next year she earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of the early 20th-century actress Evelyn Nesbit in the movie Ragtime. The following years she completed her education as an actress at the American Conservatory Theatre and at The Juilliard School, and began to act in theater plays, first off-Broadway and later in famous theaters. Since then she has continued performing on stage between film assignments rather than concentrating on becoming a film star. As a movie actress, big-eyed and slightly baby-faced McGovern has given preference to eccentric roles over those parts typically tailored for actresses of her age. In 1989 she played Mickey Rourke's sweet girlfriend in Johnny Handsome, directed by Walter Hill, and the same year she appeared as a rebellious lesbian in Volker Schlöndorff's thriller The Handmaid's Tale. Besides cinema and theater, she has also played in several television films.

In 1992, she married English producer and director Simon Curtis, with whom she lives in London, together with their two daughters.

Unlikely Marriages…hmmm

1. If Kitty Carlisle married Conway Twitty, she'd be Kitty Twitty.
2. If Yoko Ono married Sonny Bono, she'd be Yoko Ono Bono.
3. If Dolly Parton married Salvador Dali, she'd be Dolly Dali.
4. If Bo Derek married Don Ho, she'd be Bo Ho.
5. If Olivia Newton-John married Wayne Newton, then divorced him to
marry Elton John, she'd be Olivia Newton-John Newton John.
6. If Sondra Locke married Elliott Ness, then divorced him to marry
Herman Munster, she'd become Sondra Locke Ness Munster.
7. If Bea Arthur married Sting, she'd be Bea Sting.
8. If Liv Ullman married Judge Lance Ito, then divorced him and married
Jerry Mathers, she'd be Liv Ito Beaver.
9. If Snoop Doggy Dogg married Winnie the Pooh, he'd be Snoop Doggy Dogg
Pooh.
10. How about a baseball marriage? If Boog Powell married Felipe Alou,
he'd be Boog Alou.
11. If G. Gordon Liddy married Boutros-Boutros Ghali, then divorced him
to marry Kenny G., he'd be G. Ghali G.
12. If Shirley Jones married Tom Ewell, then Johnny Rotten, then Nathan
Hale, she'd be Shirley Ewell Rotten Hale.
13. If Ivana Trump married, in succession, Orson Bean (actor), King
Oscar (of Norway), Louis B. Mayer (of MGM), and Norbert Wiener
(mathematician), she would then be Ivana Bean Oscar Mayer Wiener.
14. If Woody Allen married Natalie Wood, divorced her and
married Gregory Peck, divorced him and married Ben Hur, he'd
be Woody Wood Peck Hur.

Good morning, hawkman. Love those combinations of married names, buddy, especially Woody Wood Peck Hur.

Thanks once more for the great bio's and until our dear Raggedy pup pads in, here is a song from Ricky Skaggs.


When I was a boy, daddy was my guiding light
We'd take walks and talk about fishing, girls, and life
He'd help me with my homework, cheer me up when I was down
Best friend that I ever had, I miss havin' him around.

He'd say, do the very best you can with all that you've been blessed
And if the load's too great for you the Lord will do the rest
Keep one thing in mind if all else should fail
You can't control the wind but you can adjust the sail.

--- Instrumental ---

Daddy lost his job when the factory closed
Times were hard, bills to pay he was troubled and it showed
But he said, son don't worry it's all to no avail
We can't control the wind but we can adjust the sail.

I think of his advice when life turns its back on me
There is no mountain I can't climb if I start down on my knees.

I'll do the very best I can with all that I've been blessed
And if the load's too great for me the Lord will do the rest
I'll keep one thing in mind if all else should fail
I can't control the wind but I can adjust the sail.

No, I can't control the wind but I can adjust the sail

Good morning. I like Bo Ho.

A bit of synchro here, Letty, with Elizabeth McGovern. I don't have a picture of her on a red velvet swing, though.

Lupe Velez; Harriet Nelson; Hume Cronyn; Red Skelton; James Brolin; Ricky Skaggs; Elizabeth McGovern: