This song by the Commodores is special to me. It was "our song" when I was romancing my wife.
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Letty
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Wed 7 May, 2008 04:01 am
Good morning, WA2K radio audience.
Ah, edgar. I recall that song from your "twisted lyrics" thread. What a beautiful way to say, "I love you" to your lovely wife, Texas.
Well, I don't exactly care for bebop, but this one Bud played solo on his bass, so I thought I would let everyone listen to one helluva great woman do it, proving that there are those ladies who still can rival the guys when it comes to jazz.
I don't dig the bebop that much. I generally prefer lyrics over all else (but not always).
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Letty
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Wed 7 May, 2008 05:27 am
edgar, I had forgotten what a sad life Connie Francis had. Frankly, Texas, I never cared for her style, but then I didn't listen. Now I do, and it makes a difference.
George 'Gabby' Hayes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born George Francis Hayes
May 7, 1885(1885-05-07)
Wellsville, New York
Died February 9, 1969, age 83
Burbank, California
George Francis 'Gabby' Hayes (May 7, 1885 - February 9, 1969) was an American actor. He was best known for his numerous appearances in western movies as the colorful sidekick to the leading man. (Not to be confused with British character actor George Hayes [1888-1967], who made a few movies in the U.S.)
Early years
Hayes was born the third of seven children in Wellsville, New York, and did not come from a cowboy background. In fact, he did not know how to ride a horse until he was in his forties and had to learn for movie roles. His father, Clark Hayes, operated a hotel and was also involved in oil production. George Hayes played semi-professional baseball while in high school, then ran away from home in 1902, at 17. He joined a stock company, apparently traveled for a time with a circus, and became a successful vaudevillian. He had become so successful that by 1928 he was able, at 43, to retire to a home on Long Island in Baldwin, New York. He lost all his savings the next year in the 1929 stock-market crash and returned to acting.
Hayes married Olive E. Ireland, daughter of a New Jersey glass finisher, on March 4, 1914. She joined him in vaudeville, performing under the name Dorothy Earle (not to be confused with film actress/writer Dorothy Earle). She convinced him in 1929 to try his luck in motion pictures, and the couple moved to Los Angeles. They remained together until her death July 5, 1957. The couple had no children.
Film career
On his move to Los Angeles, according to later interviews, Hayes had a chance meeting with producer Trem Carr, who liked his look and gave him thirty roles over the next six years. In his early career, Hayes was cast in a variety of roles, including villains, and occasionally played two roles in a single film. He found a niche in the growing genre of western films, many of which were series with recurring characters. Ironically, Hayes would admit he had never been a big fan of westerns.
Hayes, in real life an intelligent, well groomed, and articulate man, was cast as a grizzled codger who uttered phrases like "consarn it", "yer durn tootin", "durn persnickety female", and "young whippersnapper".
Hayes played the part of Windy Halliday, the sidekick to Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd), from 1935 to 1939. In 1939, Hayes left Paramount Pictures in a dispute over his salary and moved to Republic Pictures. Paramount held the rights to the name Windy Halliday, so a new nickname was created for Hayes' character; Gabby. As Gabby Whitaker, Hayes appeared in more than 40 pictures between 1939 and 1946, usually with Roy Rogers but also with Gene Autry or Bill Elliot, often working under the directorship of Joseph Kane.
Hayes was also repeatedly cast as a sidekick to western icons Randolph Scott and John Wayne. In fact, Wayne and Hayes made numerous films together in the very early 1930s with Hayes playing "straight" pre-sidekick roles, and sometimes even the villain. Hayes became a popular performer and consistently appeared among the ten favorite actors in polls taken of movie-goers of the period. He appeared in either or both the Motion Picture Herald and Boxoffice Magazine lists of Top Ten Money-Making Western Stars for twelve straight years and a thirteenth time in 1954, four years after his last movie.
The western film genre declined in the late 1940s and Hayes made his last film appearance in The Cariboo Trail (1950). He moved to television and hosted The Gabby Hayes Show, a western series, from 1950 to 1954, and a new version in 1956. He introduced the show, often while whittling on a piece of wood and would sometimes throw in some tall stories. Half way through the show he would say something else and at the end too but he did not appear as an active character in the stories themselves. When the series ended he retired from show business. He lent his name to a comic book series and to a children's summer camp in New York. Following his wife's death in 1957, he lived in and managed a ten-unit apartment building he owned in North Hollywood, California. In early 1969, he entered St. John Hospital in Burbank, California for treatment of cardiovascular disease. He died there on February 9, 1969, at the age of 83. George 'Gabby' Hayes was interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Honors
For his contribution to radio, Gabby Hayes has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6427 Hollywood Blvd. and a second star at 1724 Vine Street for his contribution to the television industry. In 2000, he was posthumously inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Homages
Homage was paid to Hayes in a different way in the 1974 satirical western Blazing Saddles. A look-a-like actor named Claude Ennis Starrett, Jr. played a Gabby Hayes-like character. In keeping with one running joke in the movie, the character was called Gabby Johnson. After he delivered a rousing, though largely unintelligible speech to the townspeople ("You get back here you pious candy-ass sidewinder. Ain't no way that nobody is gonna' to leave this town. Hell, I was born here, an' I was raished here, an' dad gum it, I am gonna die here an' no sidewindin bushwackin, hornswaglin, cracker croaker is gonna rouin me biscuit cutter."), David Huddleston's character proclaimed, "Now, who can argue with that?!" and described it as "authentic frontier gibberish." Gabby was also immortalized once again in the Simpsons episode where Milhouse become "Fallout boy". the producer of the film comments that Milhouse is "..going to be big, Gabby Hayes big!"
Additionally, every year in April at the beginning of fishing season in Pennsylvania, the Gabby Hayes Memorial Fishing Tournament is held. The first tournament was held in 1969, the year of Hayes's death.
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Wed 7 May, 2008 08:12 am
Gary Cooper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Frank James Cooper
May 7, 1901(1901-05-07)
Helena, Montana, U.S.
Died May 13, 1961 (aged 60)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Years active 1923-1961
Spouse(s) Veronica Balfe (1933-1961)
[show]Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Actor
1941 Sergeant York
1952 High Noon
Academy Honorary Award
1961 Lifetime Achievement
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
1953 High Noon
Frank James "Gary" Cooper May 7, 1901 - May 13, 1961) was an American two-time Academy Award-winning film actor of English heritage. His career spanned from 1924 until 1961, the year of his death. In that timespan he made one hundred films. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, individualistic, emotionally restrained, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited for the many Westerns he made.
Cooper received five Oscar nominations for Best Actor, winning twice. He also received an Honorary Award from the Academy in 1961. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Cooper among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at No. 11.
Biography
Childhood
Cooper was born Frank James Cooper in Helena, Montana, one of two sons of a Bedfordshire, England, farmer turned American lawyer and judge, Charles Henry Cooper, and Kent, England-born Alice (née Brazier) Cooper.[1] His mother hoped for their two sons to receive a better education than that available in rough-hewn Montana and arranged for the boys to attend Dunstable School in England between 1910 and 1913. Upon the outbreak of World War I, Mrs. Cooper brought her sons home and enrolled young Frank in a Bozeman, Montana, high school.
When he was 13, Cooper injured his hip in an automobile accident. He returned to the ranch his parents owned near Helena to recuperate by horseback riding, at the recommendation of his doctor. Cooper started college at Montana Wesleyan (now defunct) in Helena[citation needed], then transferred to Iowa's Grinnell College, where he tried out, unsuccessfully, for the Drama Club. He attended until the spring of 1924 but did not graduate. [2] He then returned to Helena, managing the ranch and contributing cartoons to the local paper. In 1924, Cooper's father left the Montana Supreme Court bench and moved with his wife to Los Angeles. Their son, unable to make a living as an editorial cartoonist in Helena, joined them, [3] reasoning that he "would rather starve where it was warm, than to starve and freeze too" [4]
Hollywood
Failing as a salesman of both electric signs and theatrical curtains, as a promoter for a local photographer, and as an applicant for newspaper work in Los Angeles,[5] the 6 ft 3 in (190 cm) Cooper found he could earn money as an "extra" in the motion picture industry, usually cast as a cowboy; he is known to have been in an uncredited role in the 1925 Tom Mix Western, Dick Turpin.[6] A year later, he had screen credit in a two-reeler, Lightnin' Wins, with actress Eileen Sedgewick as his leading lady. After the release of this short film, he accepted a long-term contract with Paramount Pictures. He changed his name to Gary in 1925, following the advice of casting director Nan Collins, who felt it evoked the "rough, tough" nature of her native Gary, Indiana.[7]
in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)"Coop", as he was called by his peers, went on to appear in over 100 films. He became a major star with his first sound picture, The Virginian, in 1929. The lead in the screen adaptation of A Farewell to Arms (1932) and the title role in 1936's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town furthered his box office appeal. Cooper was producer David O. Selznick's first choice for the role of Rhett Butler in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.[8] When Cooper turned down the role, he was passionately against it. He is quoted as saying, "Gone with the Wind is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I'm glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling flat on his nose, not me".[9][10] Alfred Hitchcock wanted him to star in Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Saboteur (1942). Cooper later admitted he had made a "mistake" in turning down the director. For the former film, Hitchcock cast look-alike Joel McCrea instead.
In 1942, he won his first Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as the title character in Sergeant York. Alvin York refused to authorize a movie about his life unless Gary Cooper portrayed him. In 1953, Cooper won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his performance as Marshal Will Kane in High Noon, considered his finest role. Ill with an ulcer, he wasn't present to receive his Academy Award in February 1953. He asked John Wayne to accept it on his behalf, a bit of irony in light of Wayne's stated distaste for the film.[11]
Cooper continued to appear in films almost to the end of his life. Among his later box office hits was his portrayal of a Quaker farmer during the Civil War in William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion in 1956. His final motion picture was a British film, The Naked Edge (1961), directed by Michael Anderson. Among his final projects was narrating an NBC documentary, The Real West, in which he helped clear up myths about famous Western figures.
Private life
In October 1947, Cooper testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He did not name names, but was considered a friendly witness. Although Cooper was politically conservative, his vague, evasive statements raised questions about his agreement with the proceedings.
Cooper had high-profile relationships with actresses Clara Bow, Lupe Vélez, and the American-born socialite-spy Countess Carla Dentice di Frasso (née Dorothy Caldwell Taylor, formerly wife of British pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White).
On December 15, 1933, Cooper wed Veronica Balfe, (May 27, 1913 - February 16, 2000). Balfe was a New York Roman Catholic socialite who had briefly acted under the name of Sandra Shaw. She appeared in the film No Other Woman, but her most widely seen role was in King Kong, as the woman dropped by Kong. Her third and final movie was Blood Money. Her father was governor of the New York Stock Exchange, and her uncle was Cedric Gibbons. During the 1930s she also became the California state women's Skeet Champion. They had one child, Maria, now Maria Cooper Janis, married to classical pianist Byron Janis.
Eventually, his wife persuaded Cooper to become a Roman Catholic in 1958. After he was married, but prior to his conversion, Cooper had affairs with several famous co-stars, including Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly, and Patricia Neal. Cooper's daughter Maria, when she was a little girl, famously spat at Neal, but many years later, the two became friends. Cooper separated from his wife between 1951 and 1954.
He was friends with Ernest Hemingway, and spent many vacations with the writer in the winter wonderland of Sun Valley, Idaho.
In 1961, Cooper died of prostate cancer six days after his 60th birthday, and was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Years later, his body was moved to Sacred Heart Cemetery, Southampton, New York.[12] He had undergone surgery for prostate cancer which had spread to his colon in the previous year, but as there were no means of monitoring the progress of cancer in those days it then spread to his lungs and then, most painfully, to his bones. Cooper was too ill to attend the Academy Awards ceremony in April 1961, so his close friend James Stewart accepted the honorary Oscar on his behalf. Stewart's emotional speech hinted that something was seriously wrong, and the next day newspapers all over the world ran the headline, "Gary Cooper has cancer". One month later Cooper was dead.
Legacy
For his contribution to the film industry, Gary Cooper has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6243 Hollywood Blvd. In 1966, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His name has also been immortalized in Irving Berlin's song "Puttin' on the Ritz" with the line, "Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper, (super duper)".
Charlton Heston often cited Cooper as a childhood role model, and later got to work with him on The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959). Heston praised Cooper for doing his own stunts despite his age and poor health. He has been briefly mentioned a few times on the HBO drama, The Sopranos, when the main character, Tony Soprano, remarks that he admired Gary Cooper for being the strong, silent type.
Morgan Freeman while being interviewed on The Adam Carolla Show in 2007, stated that watching Cooper as a young man has inspired him to act.
On the list AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains chosen by American Film Institute in 2003, Gary Cooper is the only actor to appear three times; in all three he appeared as a hero.
In Life on Mars, a British television series in the environment of 1970s policing DCI Gene Hunt (Phillip Glenister) referred to Gary Cooper as a god amongst men.
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bobsmythhawk
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Wed 7 May, 2008 08:14 am
David Tomlinson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born David Cecil MacAlister Tomlinson
May 7, 1917(1917-05-07)
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England
Died June 24, 2000 (aged 83)
Westminster, London, England
Spouse(s) Audrey Freeman
Awards won
Academy Awards
Nominated best actor in a supporting role 1968
David Cecil MacAlister Tomlinson (May 7, 1917 - June 24, 2000) was an English film actor. He is primarily remembered for his role as George Banks in the movie Mary Poppins.
Early life
Born in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England on May 7, 1917 [1], Tomlinson attended the Tonbridge School, but left to join the Grenadier Guards. His introduction to the working world came as a clerk for London's Shell House. His stage career grew from amateur stage productions to his 1940 film debut in Quiet Wedding. His career was interrupted when he entered WWII service as a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF. His flying days continued after the war and he crashed a Tiger Moth plane near his backyard much to the chagrin of his neighbours. His father Clarence, a prominent London lawyer, defended him at his subsequent trial (for flying too low).
Film career
As George Banks, head of the Banks family in the 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins, David Tomlinson was known to generations of children for his role in one of the most popular family films of all time. Although Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke's characters are often seen as the breath of fresh air brushing through the Banks' home, Mr. Banks' role, and indeed Tomlinson's performance, is also noteworthy. Mr. Banks is a senior figure in a bank who takes his job very seriously and has little time for or patience with his children. Following a riot at the bank precipitated by the actions of his young son his character is forced to relinquish his job in a moving scene in which his bowler hat and umbrella are symbolically destroyed. By the end of the film, however, Mr. Banks is finally made a partner of the bank in a touching performance from Tomlinson, and Mary Poppins decides that her services are no longer required as Mr. Banks has learned to engage with his children on their level.
Mary Poppins brought Tomlinson continued work with Disney, appearing in The Love Bug (1969) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Throughout the rest of Tomlinson's film career, he never steered far from comedies.
As a testament to Tomlinson's decency and popularity with other entertainers, when Peter Sellers was recuperating in a London hospital following a heart attack he apparently said: "I only want to see David."
Personal life
Tomlinson was married for 57 years to actress Audrey Freeman and the two had four sons, David Jr., William, Henry and James. He died peacefully in his sleep at the King Edward the VII Hospital, Westminster at 0400 on June 24, 2000 [2] [3] after suffering a series of strokes. Tomlinson was 83 years old.
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bobsmythhawk
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Wed 7 May, 2008 08:17 am
Darren McGavin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born William Lyle Richardson
May 7, 1922(1922-05-07)
Spokane, Washington
Died February 25, 2006 (aged 83)
Los Angeles, California
Years active 1940-2006
Spouse(s) Kathie Browne
Melanie York
William Lyle Richardson (May 7, 1922 - February 25, 2006), who adopted the name Darren McGavin, was an American actor best known for playing the title role in the television horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and also his portrayal in the movie A Christmas Story of the grumpy father given to bursts of profanity that he never realizes his son overhears. He also appeared as the tough-talking, funny detective in the TV series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.
Childhood
McGavin was born in Spokane, Washington, to Reid Delano Richardson and Grace McGavin. However, some sources list his birthplace as San Joaquin, California.
In magazine interviews during the 1960s, he stated that his parents divorced when he was very young and that his father, not knowing what else to do, put him in an orphanage at the age of 11. McGavin began to run away, often sleeping on the docks and in warehouses. He ended up in three orphanages. The last one was a boy's home, which turned out to be a safe haven for McGavin. He lived there for a few years where there were farm chores assigned, along with several other boys who were abandoned like himself. McGavin said that the owners of the home helped him to establish a sense of pride and responsibility, and that this helped to turn his life around.
Career
Still untrained as an actor, McGavin worked as a painter in the paint crew at the Columbia Pictures movie studios in 1945. When an opening became available for a bit part in A Song to Remember, the movie set on which he was working, McGavin applied for the role. He was hired for it, and that was his first foray into movie acting. (He had spent a year at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.) Shortly afterwards, he moved to New York City and spent a decade of learning the acting craft in TV and the plays there. McGavin studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio under the famous teacher Sanford Meisner and began working in live TV drama and on Broadway. A few of the plays in which he starred included The Rainmaker (where he created the title role on Broadway), The King and I and Death of a Salesman.
McGavin returned to Hollywood and became a busy actor in a wide variety of TV and movie roles; in 1955 he broke through with roles in the films Summertime and The Man with the Golden Arm. Over the course of his career, McGavin starred in seven different TV series and guest-starred in many more; these roles on television increased in the late 1950s and early 1960s with leading parts in series such as Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer and Riverboat.
When the comedy team Martin and Lewis broke up as a result of Dean Martin's refusal to play a cop in a movie, McGavin played the role originally earmarked for Martin in The Delicate Delinquent, Jerry Lewis's first solo film.
McGavin was also the top contender to replace Larry Hagman as the male lead of the television series I Dream of Jeannie.
McGavin was also known for his role as Sam Parkhill in the miniseries adaptation of The Martian Chronicles. He appeared as a fill-in regular in The Name of the Game in 1971 after Tony Franciosa was dismissed; he, Peter Falk, Robert Culp, and Robert Wagner stepped in to rotate in the lead role with Gene Barry and Robert Stack.
The first of his two best-known roles came in 1972, in the supernatural-themed TV movie The Night Stalker (1972). With McGavin playing a reporter who discovers the activities of a modern-day vampire on the loose in Las Vegas, the film became the highest-rated made-for-TV movie in history at that time; and when the sequel The Night Strangler (1973) also was a strong success, a subsequent television series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974) was made. In the series, McGavin played Carl Kolchak, an investigative reporter for a Chicago-based news service who regularly stumbles upon the supernatural or occult basis for a seemingly mundane crime; although his involvement routinely assisted in the dispelment of the otherworldly adversary, his evidence in the case was always destroyed or seized, usually by a public official or major social figure who sought to cover up the incident. He would write his ensuing stories in a sensational, tabloid style which advised readers that the true story was being withheld from them.
Kolchak was the inspiration for the series The X-Files and due to this, McGavin was asked to play the role of Arthur Dales, the man who started the X-Files, in three episodes: Season 5's "Travelers" and two episodes from Season 6, "Agua Mala" and "The Unnatural". Unfortunately, failing health forced him to withdraw from the latter, and the script (written and directed by series star David Duchovny) was rewritten to feature M. Emmet Walsh as Dales's brother, also called Arthur.
In 1983, he starred as "Old Man Parker", the narrator's father, in the movie A Christmas Story. Opposite Melinda Dillon as the narrator's mother, he portrayed an ornery, irascible working-class father, in 1940 Hohman, Indiana [1] who was endearing in spite of his being comically oblivious to his own use of profanity and completely unable to recognize his unfortunate taste for kitsch. Blissfully unaware of his family's embarrassment by his behavior, he took pride in his self-assessed ability to fix anything in record time, and carried on a tireless campaign against his neighbor's rampaging bloodhounds.
McGavin made an uncredited appearance in 1984's The Natural as a shady gambler and appeared on a Christmas episode ("Midnight of the Century") of Millennium, playing the long-estranged father of Frank Black (Lance Henriksen); he also appeared as Adam Sandler's hotel-magnate father in the 1995 movie Billy Madison.
During the filming of The Natural, Robert Redford was so pleased with McGavin's portrayal of his character that they began to expand the role. However, after a certain point, union rules dictated that the actor's contract needed to be renegotiated for salary and billing. After haggling on salary, and holding up production of the movie because of it, the billing had to be decided. McGavin became somewhat fed up with the proceedings and instructed his agent to waive his billing entirely so they could get back to filming.
He won a CableACE Award (for the 1991 TV movie Clara) and received a 1990 Emmy Award as an Outstanding Guest Star in a Comedy Series on Murphy Brown, in which he played Murphy's father.
McGavin was married twice in long-term marriages:
Melanie York (March 20, 1944 to 1969), producing four children (Bogart, York, Megan, and Bridget McGavin), ending in divorce;
Kathie Browne (December 31, 1969 - April 8, 2003), ending at her death.
It is unclear whether McGavin was in naval or other military service in World War II, although he was then in his early twenties and thus eligible.
On February 25, 2006, McGavin died of natural causes in a Los Angeles-area hospital, according to his son, Bogart McGavin.[2]
He was buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
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bobsmythhawk
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Wed 7 May, 2008 08:20 am
Anne Baxter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born May 7, 1923(1923-05-07)
Michigan City, Indiana
Died December 12, 1985 (aged 62)
New York City, New York
Years active 1940 - 1983
Spouse(s) John Hodiak (1946-1953)
Randolph Galt (1960-1969)
David Klee (1977-1977)
Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actress
1946 The Razor's Edge
Golden Globe Awards
Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1947 The Razor's Edge
Anne Baxter (May 7, 1923 - December 12, 1985) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.
Early life
Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana to Kenneth Stuart Baxter and Catherine Wright;[1] her maternal grandfather was the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Baxter's father was a prominent executive with the Seagrams Distillery Co. and she was raised in New York City amidst luxury and sophistication. At age ten, Baxter attended a Broadway play starring Helen Hayes, and was so impressed that she declared to her family that she wanted to become an actress. By the age of thirteen, Anne had appeared on Broadway. During this period, Baxter learned her acting craft as a student of the famed teacher Maria Ouspenskaya.
Career
Baxter screen-tested for the role of Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca, but lost out to Joan Fontaine because director Alfred Hitchcock considered her "too young" for the role. The strength of that first foray into movie acting secured the then sixteen-year-old Baxter a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Her first movie role was in 20 Mule Team in 1940. She was chosen by director Orson Welles to appear in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), based on the novel by Booth Tarkington. Baxter co-starred with Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney in 1946's The Razor's Edge, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1950 she was chosen to co-star in All About Eve, largely because of a resemblance to Claudette Colbert, who had initially been chosen to co-star in the film. Baxter received a nomination for Best Actress for the title role of Eve Harrington. Later during that decade, Baxter also continued to act in professional theater. According to a program from the production, Baxter appeared on Broadway in 1953 opposite Tyrone Power in Charles Laughton's John Brown's Body, a play based upon the narrative poem by Stephen Vincent Benét (though the Internet Broadway Database states that Power's co-star was Judith Anderson).
Baxter is also remembered for her compelling role as the Egyptian princess Nefertiri opposite Charlton Heston's portrayal of Moses in Cecil B. Demille's award winning The Ten Commandments (1956).
Baxter appeared regularly on television in the 1960s. For example, she did a stint as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday Night CBS-TV program. She also starred as the special guest villain "Zelda the Great" in two episodes of the 60s superhero show Batman. She also appeared as the special guest villain "Olga, Queen of the Cossacks" opposite Vincent Price's "Egghead" in three episodes of the show's third season.
Baxter appeared again on Broadway during the 1970s, in Applause, the musical version of All About Eve, but this time in the "Margo Channing" role played by Bette Davis in the film (she was replacing Lauren Bacall, who won a Tony Award in the role). Bette Davis tells, in one of her biographies, of attending one such performance by Baxter, to their mutual delight.[citation needed]
In the 1970s, Baxter was a frequent guest and stand-in host on the popular daytime TV talk-fest The Mike Douglas Show, since Baxter and host Mike Douglas were friends. She portrayed a homicidal movie star on an episode of Columbo.
In 1983, the actress starred in the television series Hotel, replacing Bette Davis in the cast after Davis took ill. Baxter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6741 Hollywood Blvd.
Private life
In the 1950s, Baxter was married to and then divorced from actor John Hodiak. That union produced Baxter's oldest daughter, Katrina. In 1961, Baxter and her second husband, Randolph Galt, left the United States to live and raise their children on a cattle station in the Australian outback. She told the story in her memoir Intermission: A True Story. In the book, Baxter blamed the failure of her first marriage to Hodiak on herself.
Though her second marriage to Galt did not last much longer, Baxter and Galt had two daughters together: Melissa Galt and Maginel Galt. Privately during this period, Baxter chose to refer to herself as Ann Galt amongst her neighbors in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, probably as a way to downplay her star status and to raise her daughters as normally as possible. Baxter was briefly married again in 1977 to David Klee, a prominent stockbroker, but was widowed when he died unexpectedly due to illness; Baxter never remarried. They had purchased a sprawling property in Easton, Connecticut which was extensively remodeled, but Klee did not live to see the renovations completed. The house itself was architecturally reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's flat-roofed structures. Baxter remodeled the living room fireplace to resemble the fireplace in her grandfather's masterpiece, Fallingwater. Although Baxter maintained a residence in West Hollywood, California, she considered her beloved Connecticut home to be her primary residence.
Baxter died from a brain aneurysm on December 12, 1985, while walking down Madison Avenue in New York City. She is buried on the estate of Frank Lloyd Wright in Spring Green, Wisconsin.[2]
Baxter was survived by her three adult daughters. Baxter was a lifelong friend of the late costume designer Edith Head, who appeared with Baxter in a cameo role in the Columbo episode in which Baxter starred. Upon Head's death in 1981, Baxter's daughter Melissa was bequeathed her extraordinary collection of jewelry. Melissa Galt today works as an interior designer in Atlanta. Her oldest daughter, Katrina Hodiak, ultimately married and had children. Baxter's daughter Maginel Galt is reportedly a Catholic nun living and working in Rome, Italy.
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bobsmythhawk
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Wed 7 May, 2008 08:23 am
Teresa Brewer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Theresa Breuer
Born May 7, 1931(1931-05-07)
Toledo, Ohio,
Died October 17, 2007 (aged 76)
New Rochelle, New York
Genre(s) Traditional pop
Years active 1949-1970s
Label(s) London, Coral, Philips
Website Teresa Brewer Center
Teresa Brewer (May 7, 1931 - October 17, 2007) was an American pop and jazz singer who was one of the most popular female singers of the 1950s. Born Theresa Breuer in Toledo, Ohio, Brewer died of a neuromuscular disease at her home in New Rochelle, N.Y. at the age of 76.[1]
Life and career
Brewer's father was an inspector of glass for the Libbey Owens Company (now Pilkington Glass); her mother was a housewife. At the age of two, Theresa was brought by her mother to audition for a radio program, "Uncle August's Kiddie Show" on Toledo's WSPD.
She performed for cookies and cupcakes donated by the sponsor. Although she never took singing lessons, she took tap dancing lessons. From age five to twelve, she toured with the "Major Bowes Amateur Hour", then a popular radio show, both singing and dancing. Her aunt Mary traveled with Theresa until 1949, when Theresa married. She was devoted to her aunt, who shared Brewer's home until her death in 1993.
At the age of 12, Theresa was brought back to Toledo, ceasing touring to have a normal school life. She continued to perform on local radio. In January 1948 the 16 years-old Theresa won a local competition and (with three other winners) was sent to New York to appear on a talent show called "Stairway to the Stars", featuring Eddie Dowling. It was about that time that she changed the spelling of her name from Theresa Breuer to Teresa Brewer. She won a number of talent shows and played night clubs in New York (including the famous Latin Quarter).
An agent, Richie Lisella, heard her sing and took her career in hand, and soon she was signed to a contract with London Records. In 1949 she recorded a record called "Copenhagen" with the Dixieland All-Stars. The B side was a song called "Music! Music! Music!" by Stephen Weiss and Bernie Baum. Unexpectedly, it was not the A side but the B side that took off, selling over a million copies, and it became Teresa's signature song.
Another novelty song, "Choo'n Gum", hit the top 20 in 1950, followed by "Molasses, Molasses". Although she preferred to sing ballads, the only one of those that made the charts was "Longing for You" in 1951.
In 1951 she switched labels, going to Coral Records. By this time she was married with a daughter, Kathleen. Since she never learned to read music, she had a demo sent to her to learn the tunes of her songs. Even so, she had a number of hits for Coral, though one of her recordings, "Gonna Get Along Without You Now" (1952) was better known in a 1956 version by Patience and Prudence and was also a hit in 1964 for Skeeter Davis as well as Tracey Dey. Also that year she recorded "You'll Never Get Away" in a duet with Don Cornell, and in 1953 came her best selling hit, "Till I Waltz Again with You".
More 1953 hits were "Dancin' with Someone," "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall", and another gold record, "Ricochet". In later years she followed with "Baby, Baby, Baby", "Bell Bottom Blues", "Our Heartbreaking Waltz" (written by Sidney Prosen, who had written "Till I Waltz Again With You"), and "Skinnie Minnie". During those years she continued to play the big night clubs in New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, and elsewhere.
In the mid-50s, she did a number of covers of rhythm and blues songs like "Pledging My Love", "Tweedle Dee", and "Rock Love". She also covered some country songs like "Jilted", "I Gotta Go Get My Baby", and "Let Me Go, Lover!".
In 1956 she had a two-sided hit with "A Tear Fell" and "Bo Weevil", covers of R&B songs. This was followed by "Sweet Old-Fashioned Girl." Also that year she co-wrote "I Love Mickey", about New York Yankees center fielder Mickey Mantle, who appeared on the record with Brewer. Another big hit in 1956 was Brewer's rendition "Mutual Admiration Society". Some of her songs have a decidedly pre-rock beat to them, especially "Ricochet", "Jilted", and "A Sweet Old Fashioned Girl".
In 1957 she made more covers: of country song "Teardrops in My Heart" and R&B songs "You Send Me" and "Empty Arms". The last chart hit of hers was "Milord" in 1961, an English language version of a song by Édith Piaf.
In 1962 she switched labels again, to Philips Records, where she recorded many singles and albums over a five year period, including Gold Country in 1966. She subsequently made a few recordings for other companies, but with no more big chart hits. In the 1970s she released a few albums on Flying Dutchman Records owned by her husband, jazz producer Bob Thiele.
Teresa Brewer remerged as a jazz vocalist on Thiele's Amsterdam label in the 1980's and 1990's recording a number of albums including tribute albums to Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and Irving Berlin. She also recorded with such jazz greats as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bobby Hackett.
Altogether, she recorded nearly 600 song titles. For her contribution to the recording industry, Teresa Brewer has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street.
In 2007 Teresa Brewer was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
Death
The singer died on October 17, 2007, at her home in New Rochelle, New York, of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), a rare degenerative brain disease. She was 76.
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bobsmythhawk
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Wed 7 May, 2008 08:25 am
Gorilla Remover
A man wakes up one morning to find a gorilla on his roof. So he looks in the yellow pages and sure enough, there's an ad for "Gorilla Removers". He calls the number, and the gorilla remover says he'll be over in 30 minutes.
The gorilla remover arrives, and gets out of his van. He's got a ladder, a baseball bat, a shotgun and a mean old pit bull.
"What are you going to do?" the homeowner asks.
"I'm going to put this ladder up against the roof, then I'm going to go up there and knock the gorilla off the roof with this baseball bat. When the gorilla falls off, the pit bull is trained to grab his testicles and not let go. The gorilla will then be subdued enough for me to put him in the cage in the back of the van."
So the guy puts the ladder up, gets the bat and the shotgun and walks towards the ladder. As he gets to the base of the ladder, he hands the shotgun to the homeowner.
"What's the shotgun for?" asks the homeowner.
"If the gorilla knocks me off the roof, shoot the dog!"
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Letty
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Wed 7 May, 2008 08:42 am
Thanks, Bob, for the great bio's, and your gorilla joke was hilarious. Reminds me of King Kong and ping pong.
Incidentally, I rollerskated to that tango at one time, but gave it up after I fell flat on my face. Lot easier on the dance floor. 
