Myrna Loy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Myrna Adele Williams
August 2, 1905(1905-08-02)
Radersburg, Montana, United States
Died December 14, 1993 (aged 88)
New York City, New York, United States
Other name(s) Queen of Hollywood
The Perfect Wife
Queen of the Movies
Minnie
Spouse(s) Arthur Hornblow, Jr.
(1936-1942) (divorced)
John Hertz, Jr.
(1942-1944) (divorced)
Gene Markey
(1946-1950) (divorced)
Howland H. Sargeant
(1951-1960) (divorced)
[show]Awards won
Academy Awards
Academy Honorary Award
1991 Lifetime Achievement
Myrna Loy (August 2, 1905 - December 14, 1993) was an American motion picture actress. Her most famous role was as Nora Charles, wife of detective Nick Charles (William Powell), in The Thin Man series. In 1938 she was voted the "Queen of Hollywood" in a contest which also voted Clark Gable the "King".
Early life
Loy was born Myrna Adele Williams in Radersburg, Montana (near Helena), the daughter of Adelle Mae (née Johnson) and rancher David Franklin Williams.[1][2] She was of Welsh and Scottish ancestry.[3][4] Loy's first name came from a train station whose name her father liked. Her father was also a banker and real estate developer and the youngest man ever elected to the Montana state legislature. Her mother studied music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.
Myrna Williams made her stage debut at age 12 in Helena's Marlow Theater in a dance she choreographed based on "The Blue Bird" from the Rose Dream Operetta. She moved to the Palms district of Los Angeles, California when she was 13, after her father's death. She attended the Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles's Holmby Hills neighborhood. At 15, she began appearing in local stage productions. She went to Venice High School in Venice, California.
In 1921, she posed for Harry Winebrenner's statue titled "Spiritual," which remained in front of Venice High School throughout the 20th century and can be seen in the opening scenes of the film Grease (1978). The statue was removed from where it stood after vandalism and neglect turned it into a decaying eyesore, too badly rotted to restore. A group of alumni are raising money to recreate the statue, and their goal is to have it ready to unveil in spring 2009.[5]
Career
Natacha Rambova, the second wife of Rudolph Valentino, arranged a screen test for Loy, which she failed. She kept auditioning and in 1925 appeared in the Rambova-penned movie What Price Beauty? opposite Rambova and Nita Naldi. Her silent film roles were mainly those of vampish exotic women. For a few years she struggled to overcome this stereotype with many producers and directors believing that while she was perfect as femmes fatales she was capable of little more.
Her breakthrough occurred with the advent of talkies: she appeared in 1927's The Jazz Singer as an uncredited chorus girl. In 1929 she improvised a "foreign" accent, sang and danced in Warner Brothers' first musical The Desert Song (1929). Loy later commented on the film's success and noted "...it kind of solidified my exotic non-American image".[6] She was quickly cast in a number of early lavish Technicolor musicals including The Show of Shows (1929), The Bride of the Regiment (1930) and Under A Texas Moon (1930). Loy became associated with musicals and when they went out of favor with the public, late in 1930, her career went into a slump.
In 1934 she appeared in Manhattan Melodrama with Clark Gable and William Powell. When the gangster John Dillinger was shot to death after leaving a screening of the film it received widespread publicity, with some newspapers reporting that Loy had been Dillinger's favorite actress. Loy later expressed distaste for the manner in which the film studio had exploited Dillinger's death.
Rise to stardom
After appearing with Ramón Novarro in The Barbarian (1933), Loy landed the part that established her as a major actress, Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934). Director W. S. Van Dyke chose Loy after he detected a wit and sense of humor that her previous films had not revealed. At a Hollywood party, he pushed her into a swimming pool to test her reaction, and felt that her aplomb in handling the situation was exactly what he envisioned for Nora. Louis B. Mayer at first refused to allow Loy to play the part, saying that she was a dramatic actress only, but Van Dyke insisted. Mayer relented on the condition that filming be completed within three weeks, as Loy was committed to start filming Stamboul Quest (1934). The Thin Man became one of the year's biggest hits, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Loy received excellent reviews and was acclaimed for her comedic skills. She and her costar William Powell proved to be a popular screen couple and appeared in 14 films together, the most prolific pairing in Hollywood history. Loy later referred to The Thin Man as the film "that finally made me... after more than 80 films".[7]
Her successes in Manhattan Melodrama and The Thin Man marked a turning point in her career and she was cast in more important pictures. Such films as Wife vs. Secretary (1936) with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow and Petticoat Fever (1936) with Robert Montgomery gave her opportunity to develop comedic skills. She made four films in close succession with William Powell: Libeled Lady (1936), which also starred Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow, The Great Ziegfeld (1936), in which she played Billie Burke opposite Powell's Florenz Ziegfeld, the second "Thin Man" film, After the Thin Man, and the romantic comedy Double Wedding (1937). She also made three more films with Clark Gable. Parnell was an historical drama and one of the most poorly received films of either Loy's or Gable's career, but their other pairings in Test Pilot and Too Hot to Handle (both 1938) were successes.
During this period, Loy was one of Hollywood's busiest and highest paid actresses, and in 1937 and 1938 she was listed in the annual "Quigley Poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars", which was compiled from the votes of movie exhibitors throughout the U.S. for the stars that had generated the most revenue in their theaters over the previous year.[8]
By this time Loy was highly regarded for her performances in romantic comedies and she was anxious to demonstrate her dramatic ability, and was cast in the lead female role in The Rains Came (1939) opposite Tyrone Power. She filmed Third Finger, Left Hand (1940) with Melvyn Douglas and appeared in I Love You Again (1940), Love Crazy (1941) and Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), all with William Powell.
With the outbreak of World War II, she all but abandoned her acting career to focus on the war effort and worked closely with the Red Cross. She was so fiercely outspoken against Adolf Hitler that her name appeared on his blacklist. She helped run a Naval Auxiliary Canteen and toured frequently to raise funds.
Later career
She returned to films with The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946, playing the wife of returning serviceman Fredric March. In later years, Loy considered this film her proudest acting achievement. Throughout her career, she had championed the rights of black actors and characters to be depicted with dignity on film.
Loy was paired with Cary Grant in David O. Selznick's comedy film The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947). The film co-starred a teenage Shirley Temple. Following its success she appeared again with Grant in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), and with Clifton Webb in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950).
Her film career continued sporadically afterwards. In 1960, she appeared in Midnight Lace and From the Terrace, but was not in another until 1969 in The April Fools. She also returned to the stage, making her Broadway debut in a short-lived 1973 revival of Clare Boothe Luce's The Women. Loy had two mastectomies in 1975 and 1979, but survived breast cancer.[9]
Personal life
Loy was married four times:
1936-1942 Arthur Hornblow, Jr., producer
1942-1944 John Hertz Jr. of the Hertz Rent A Car family
1946-1950 Gene Markey, producer
1951-1960 Howland H. Sergeant, UNESCO delegate
Loy had no children of her own, though it is documented that she was very close to the children of her first husband, Arthur Hornblow. "Some perfect wife I am," she said, referring to her typecasting. "I've been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can't boil an egg."
In later life, she assumed a more influential role as Co-Chairman of the Advisory Council of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. In 1948 she became a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, the first Hollywood celebrity to do so.[10] She was also an active Democrat.[11]
Her autobiography, Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming, was published in 1987. On December 14, 1993, after battling breast cancer and undergoing two mastectomies, she died during surgery, the exact nature of which was never specified in the reports of her death in New York City. She was cremated and the ashes interred at Forestvale Cemetery, in Helena, Montana.
Awards
In 1965 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center in 1988.
Although Loy was never nominated for an Academy Award for any single performance, after an extensive letter writing campaign and years of lobbying by screenwriter and then-Writers Guild of America, west board member Michael Russnow, who enlisted the support of Loy's former screen colleagues and friends such as Roddy McDowall, Sidney Sheldon, Harold Russell and many others, she received an Academy Honorary Award in 1991, "for her career achievement". She accepted via camera from her New York home, making only a short acceptance speech of, "You've made me very happy. Thank you very much." It was her last public appearance in any medium.
Legacy
Myrna Loy has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6685 Hollywood Boulevard. A building at Sony Pictures Studios, formerly MGM Studios, in Culver City is named in her honor.[12]
In 1991, The Myrna Loy Center for the Performing and Media Arts opened in downtown Helena, Montana, Loy's hometown. Located in the historic Lewis and Clark County Jail, it sponsors live performances and alternative films for under-served audiences.
On August 2, 2005, the centenary of Loy's birth, Warner Home Video released the six films from The Thin Man series, on DVD as a boxed set.
Ann Dvorak
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Anna McKim
August 2, 1911(1911-08-02)
New York City
Died December 10, 1979 (aged 68)
Honolulu, Hawaii
Ann Dvorak (August 2, 1911[1]- December 10, 1979) was an American film actress.
Born as Anna McKim in New York, New York, Dvorak was the daughter of silent actress Anna Lehr and the actor/director, Samuel McKim, and as a child appeared in several films.
She began working for MGM in the late 1920s as a dance instructor and gradually began to appear on film as a chorus girl. Her friend Joan Crawford introduced her to Howard Hughes, who groomed her as a dramatic actress and she was a success in such pre-Code films as Scarface (1932), as Paul Muni's sister, as the doomed unstable "Vivian" in Three on a Match (1932), with Joan Blondell and Bette Davis, Love Is a Racket (1932), and opposite Spencer Tracy in Sky Devils (1932).
Known for her style and elegance, she was a popular leading lady for Warner Brothers during the 1930s, and appeared in numerous contemporary romances and melodramas. A dispute over her pay (she discovered she was making the same amount of money as the little boy who played her son in Three on a Match) led to her finishing out her contract on permanent suspension, and then working as a freelancer, but although she worked regularly, the quality of her scripts declined sharply. She appeared as secretary Della Street in 1937's vehicle for Donald Woods as Perry Mason, The Case of the Stuttering Bishop. She also acted on Broadway.
With her then-husband, British actor Leslie Fenton, Dvorak travelled to England where she supported the war effort by working as an ambulance driver, and worked in several British films. She retired from the screen in 1951, when she married her 3rd (and last) husband, Nicholas Wade, to whom she remained married until his death in 1977. It was her longest and most successful marriage. She had no children by any of her marriages.
She lived her post-retirement years in anonymity until her death (from undisclosed causes) in Honolulu, Hawaii at the age of 67. She was cremated and her ashes scattered.
Ann Dvorak has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6321 Hollywood Boulevard.
Trivia
Asked how to pronounce her adopted surname, she told The Literary Digest: "My name is properly pronounced vor'shack. The D remains silent. I have had quite a time with the name, having been called practically everything from Balzac to Bickelsrock." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)
Gary Merrill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born August 2, 1915(1915-08-02)
Hartford, Connecticut
Died March 5, 1990 (aged 74)
Falmouth, Maine
Spouse(s) Barbara Leeds (1941-1950)
Bette Davis (1950-1960)
Gary F. Merrill (August 2, 1915 - March 5, 1990) was an American film and television character actor whose credits included more than fifty feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of TV guest appearances.
Biography
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, he attended Bowdoin College and began acting in 1944, while still in the United States Army Air Forces, in Winged Victory. Before entering films, Merrill's deep cultured voice won him a recurring role as Batman in the Superman radio series. His film career began promisingly, with roles in films like Twelve O'Clock High (1949) and All About Eve (1950), but he rarely moved beyond supportive roles in his many Westerns, war movies, and medical dramas. His television career was extensive, if not consistent. Two of his recurring roles, which included Then Came Bronson and Young Doctor Kildare, lasted less than a season.
Merrill's first marriage, to Barbara Leeds in 1941, ended in divorce in 1950. He immediately married Bette Davis, his co-star from All About Eve, adopting her daughter Barbara from a previous marriage. He and Davis adopted two more children, but divorced in 1960. Merrill was later romantically linked with actress Rita Hayworth.
Often politically active, he campaigned to elect Edmund Muskie to governor of Maine in 1953. Merrill also took part in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. In response to President Johnson's Vietnam policy, he unsuccessfully sought nomination to the Maine legislature as an anti-war, pro-environmentalist primary candidate.[1]
Aside from an occasional role as narrator, Merrill had essentially retired from the entertainment business after 1980. Shortly before his death, he authored the autobiography Bette, Rita and the Rest of My Life (1989). Merrill died of lung cancer at Falmouth, Maine and is buried there in the Pine Grove Cemetery. During his long residence in Falmouth, Merrill received some complaints from locals due to his habit of appearing in public wearing a caftan instead of a shirt and trousers.
Carroll O'Connor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Carroll O'Connor (August 2, 1924 - June 21, 2001) was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades. Known at first for playing the role of Maj. Gen. Colt in the 1970s cult movie, Kelly's Heroes, he later found fame as the bigoted workingman Archie Bunker, the main character in the 1970s CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971 to 1979) and Archie Bunker's Place (1979 to 1983). O'Connor later starred in the 1980s NBC television crime drama In the Heat of the Night, where he played the role of Police Chief Bill Gillespie from 1988 to 1994. At the end of his career in the late 1990s, he played the father of Jamie Stemple Buchman (Helen Hunt) on Mad About You.
Early life
O'Connor, an Irish American, was one of three children born in the Bronx, New York, the son of Elise Patricia and Edward Joseph O'Connor,[1] who was a New York City lawyer. O'Connor's mother educated the future actor about language and life in The Bronx, New York. O'Connor spent much of his youth in Elmhurst and Forest Hills, Queens, in the same borough in which his character Archie Bunker would later live.[2] His family became very popular, his uncle, Hugh, was a reporter for the New York Times and his grandfather, John, was a publisher of The Irish Advocate. Growing up in the 1930s, he and his mother met future actress Anne Meara, while he was attending school. After graduating from New York City's prestigious Newtown High School in 1942, he and his classmates played hooky, very often. While attending one of the Burlesque Shows in Manhattan, he looked at all the female dancers, and made a lot of new friends. He carried on that feeling when he left his native New York City to serve in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II, was educated in Montana and Ireland, and began his acting career shortly afterward.
Film career
O'Connor's many film roles include Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Cleopatra (1963), In Harm's Way (1965), Hawaii (1966), The Devil's Brigade (1968), Kelly's Heroes (1970), and Return to Me (2000).
Prolific character actor
O'Connor made his acting debut as a character actor on 2 episodes of Sunday Showcase. These two parts led to other roles such as: Gunsmoke, I Spy, Bonanza, The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Americans, Death Valley Days, Alcoa Premiere, The Eleventh Hour, The Great Adventure, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Slattery's People, Dr. Kildare, That Girl, Premiere, among many others. During his later career, he guest-starred on Mad About You, alongside veteran television personality Carol Burnett.
Considering roles
He was also among the actors considered for the roles of The Skipper on Gilligan's Island and Dr. Smith in the TV show Lost In Space, as well as being the visual template in the creation of Batman foe Rupert Thorne, a character who debuted at the height of All in the Family's success in Detective Comics #469 (published May 1976 by DC Comics).
Television roles
All in the Family
O'Connor was living in Italy in 1970 when producer Norman Lear asked him to star as Archie Bunker in a new sitcom called All in the Family.
Wanting a well-known actor to tackle the controversial material, Lear had approached Jackie Gleason and Mickey Rooney to play Archie; both declined. O'Connor accepted, not expecting the show to be a success and believing he would be able to move back to Europe. Instead, the show became the highest-rated television program on American television for five consecutive seasons until the 1976-1977 season (the sixth season). The Cosby Show has since met the record set by the series.
O'Connor's own politics were liberal, but he understood the Bunker character and played him not only with bombast and humor but with touches of vulnerability. The writing on the show was consistently left of center, but O'Connor often deftly skewered the liberal pieties of the day. The result is widely considered to be an absorbing, entertaining television show. All in the Family was based on the BBC show Til Death Us Do Part, with Bunker based on Alf Garnett, but somewhat less abrasive.
Although Bunker was famous for his malapropisms of the English language, O'Connor was highly educated and cultured and was an English teacher before he turned to acting.
The show also starred a Broadway actress, also from New York City, Jean Stapleton, in the role of Archie Bunker's long-suffering wife, Edith Bunker after Lear saw her in the play Damn Yankees. The producer sent the show over to ABC twice, but it didn't get picked up. They then approached CBS with more success, and accordingly, All in the Family was retooled and debuted early in 1971. The show also starred unknown character actors, such as Rob Reiner as Archie's liberal son-in-law, Michael "Meathead" Stivic and Sally Struthers as Archie's only daughter and Meathead's wife, Gloria Bunker-Stivic. The cast had a unique on- and off-camera chemistry, especially Reiner, who became Carroll's best friend and favorite actor.
CBS was unsure whether the controversial subject matter of All in the Family would fit well into a sitcom. Racial issues, ethnicities, religions, and other timely topics were addressed. Thought-provoking, well-written, and well-cast, the show transformed the formerly inane sitcom format into something with dramatic social substance, becoming an enormous hit along the way. Archie Bunker's popularity made O'Connor a top-billing star of the 1970s. O'Connor was afraid of being typecast for playing such a popular and distinctive character. At the same time, he was protective of not just his character, but of the entire show.
A contract dispute between O'Connor and Lear marred the beginning of the show's fifth season. Eventually, O'Connor got a raise and appeared in the series until it ended. For his work as Archie Bunker, he was nominated for eight Emmys as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series; he won the award four times (1972, 1977, 1978, and 1979).
At the end of the eighth season in 1978, Reiner and Struthers left the series to pursue other projects, but O'Connor and Stapleton still had one year left on their contracts. At the start of the final year, the show casted a child actress, Danielle Brisebois, in the role of Archie's and Edith's little niece, Stephanie Mills. Danielle's on- and off-screen chemistry with O'Connor was remarkable. The series was finally cancelled in 1979 after nine seasons and 210 episodes, though O'Connor wasn't finished with Archie Bunker just yet.
Archie Bunker's Place
O'Connor reprised his role as Archie Bunker in the spin-off show Archie Bunker's Place. Longtime friend and original series star Jean Stapleton reprised her role as Edith Bunker, but her screen time was limited. Her character died of a stroke, leaving Archie to cope with the loss. Danielle Brisebois played Stephanie Mills, Archie's niece in the series. The show was a hit, but not as big as its parent show. The show was unexpectedly cancelled in 1983, after 97 episodes, and O'Connor was not very happy that the show didn't have an appropriate series finale. All told, he played Archie Bunker for 13 years in a total of exactly 300 episodes.
In the Heat of the Night
While coping with his son's drug problem, O'Connor starred as Chief Officer Bill Gillespie, a tough veteran Mississippi cop on In the Heat of the Night. Based on the 1967 movie of the same name, the series debuted on NBC early in 1988, and it was a ratings powerhouse every Tuesday evening. O'Connor's son, Hugh O'Connor, was cast in the role of Det. Lonnie Jamison.
Much like O'Connor himself, his character was racially progressive and politically liberal. In 1989, while working on the set, O'Connor was hospitalized and had to undergo open heart surgery, after years of heavy smoking. This caused him to miss four episodes of the show at the end of the second season. The series was cancelled in 1994, a couple of years after being transferred from NBC to CBS in 1992. After cancellation, the following year, O'Connor reprised his role for a In the Heat of the Night to critical acclaim.
Personal life
O'Connor married his wife Nancy in Dublin, Ireland (and she later converted to Roman Catholicism for him) in 1951, and their only child, adopted son Hugh O'Connor, committed suicide in 1995 after a long battle with drug addiction. Hugh left a widow and small child behind. O'Connor appeared in public service announcements for Partnership for a Drug Free America and spent the rest of his life working to raise awareness about drug addiction. After Hugh's death, O'Connor successfully lobbied to get the State of California to pass legislation that allows family members of an addicted person or anyone injured by a drug dealer's actions, including employers, to sue for reimbursement for medical treatment and rehabilitation costs. The law, known as the Drug Dealer Civil Liability Act in California, went into effect in 1997.
Eleven other states followed with similar legislation, which has been referred to as The Hugh O'Connor Memorial Law.
In April 1997 the Florida Senate unanimously passed The Hugh O'Connor Memorial Act, which allows people injured by drug dealers to sue for damages.
Honors
In the late 1990s, O'Connor taught screenwriting at the University of Montana-Missoula, where he attended college in his earlier years. In March 2000, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was given a St. Patrick's Day tribute by MGM.
In July 1991, O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers were reunited to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of All in the Family, which made its debut on CBS. Thanks to reruns which aired in syndication, TV Land and on CBS, the show continued to be popular. Those reruns led producer Norman Lear to create a new sitcom, Sunday Dinner, which was soon cancelled. The following year, Lear created The Powers That Be, which was also unsuccessful.
His caricature figures prominently in Sardi's restaurant, in New York City's Theater District.
Health
In 1989, O'Connor underwent heart bypass surgery.
In 1998, he underwent a second surgery to clear the blockage in a heart artery to reduce his risk of a stroke.
Friendship with other actors
O'Connor met Broadway and character actress Jean Stapleton in a 1962 episode of The Defenders. Nine years later, she auditioned for the role of Archie's wife Edith in All in the Family. She and O'Connor shared a remarkable husband and wife chemistry for the next decade. She made limited guest appearances on its later spin-off show, Archie Bunker's Place, before leaving in the show's second season. During Stapleton's run as Edith Bunker, she and O'Connor became close friends. She was distressed in 1995, as she bestowed her condolences on the passing of Carroll's son, Hugh, who committed suicide. She remained close and supportive while O'Connor was in court to testify his son's death. Then on the first day of Summer in 2001, while performing on stage, she received word that her dear friend had passed away. Though she was unable to attend the service, she delivered her condolences to Nancy.
O'Connor had a long-running friendship with versatile actor Larry Hagman, beginning in 1959, when Carroll was working as an assistant stage manager for the Broadway play God and Kate Murphy, in which Hagman starred. Later as the two struggled as young actors, they rented apartments near each other in New York. Over the years they had a lot in common; just as O'Connor concluded contract negotiations for his salary on All in the Family, in 1974, missing 2 episodes, Hagman eventually found himself re-negotiating his salary on Dallas, with similar results. Hagman's daughter, Heidi, whom O'Connor had known since her childhood, joined the cast for one season of Archie Bunker's Place. Hagman directed several episodes of O'Connor's later series, In the Heat of the Night. They both endured serious health issues, with O'Connor's heart bypass surgery, and Hagman's liver transplant. Hagman remained close after O'Connor's loss of his son Hugh, and through the rest of O'Connor's life, delivering a eulogy at the funeral.
Personal Quotes
"Nothing will give me any peace. I've lost a son. And I'll go to my grave without any peace over that."[3]
"It was a lack of system that made the 30's Depression as inevitable as all others previously suffered.".[4]
"Get between your kid and drugs, any way you can, if you want to save the kid's life".[5]
Carroll at one point, All in the Family, was getting canceled: "I thought that the public would kick us off the air, because of this egregious guy. No. They loved ... they knew him."[6]
On his son who was supposed to put him under house arrest: "I should have spied on him. I should've taken away all his civil rights, spied on him, opened his mail, listened to telephone calls, everything."[7]
"I never heard Archie's kind of talk in my own family. My father was a lawyer and was in partnership with two Jews, who with their families were close to us. There were black families in our circle of friends. My father disliked talk like Archie's -- he called it lowbrow."[8]
"The biggest part of my life was the acquiring and the loss of a son. I mean, nothing else was as important as that."[9]
"Conventional show-biz savvy held that Americans hated to be the objects of satire."[10]
Death
O'Connor died on June 21, 2001 from a heart attack brought on by complications from diabetes in Culver City, California. His funeral was attended by All in the Family cast members Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers and Danielle Brisebois, and Producer Norman Lear. Actress Jean Stapleton, who had been a close friend of O'Connor's since the early 1960s, did not attend the service due to a commitment on stage.[11] In honor of his career, TV Land moved an entire weekend of programming to the next week and showed a continuous marathon of All in the Family. During the commercial breaks they also showed some interview footage of O'Connor and various All in the Family actors, producers with whom he had worked, and other associates. Best friend Larry Hagman and his family were also there, alongside the surviving cast of In the Heat of the Night, especially Alan Autry and Denise Nicholas, who also attended the memorial. O'Connor was buried at Westwood Memorial Cemetary with his son Hugh's cenotaph placed on his grave stone.
A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?"
The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard.
The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: "OK, now what?"
Carroll O'Conner, Merv Griffin and Helen Merrill singing together on TV. Carroll was no great vocalist, but he was always in demand.
Thanks, BioBob, for the bio's and the great joke. Yep, that's one way to do it. Love it!
firefly, the theme from Lawerence of Arabia is lovely and I can still see Peter O literally drooling over his part in the train attack. Rather reminds us of Patton who loved war and thought himself to be the reincarnation of the Spartans.
Raggedy, great montage today, and thanks for the bird song, gal. Also liked that song from Show Boat.
Interestingly enough, I sang Bye Bye Blackbird and Fish gotta swim. Thanks for the memory.
JPB, I didn't realize that you sang as well. Wonderful, Chicago.
Hey, edgar. Did you mean to play that song?
I love this theme from In the Heat of the Night, so let's listen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIDCwtBj4DY&feature=related
God, how I love that symphony, JPB, especially when the strings do the pizzicato thing. I realize that Dvorak is pronounced Vorjacque, isn't that right? Although he wrote that for the new America, it was mostly European in origin.
And, folks, if you noticed toward the end of the 4th movement, there was a brief melody from which this song was taken.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBrEQYRcizk
Hey, firefly. Amazing that W.C. Handy inspired Paul. The lyrics are a bit different than I thought, however.
As serendipity would have it, I was searching for one thing and found another.
Loved this song when I was a kid, folks. (incidentally, the D is pronounced in Dvorak.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y9cTF37kfo&feature=related
Al Jolson has always amazed me, firefly, and I like Red, Red, Robin. Thanks for the reminder of that man who broke all the rules.
We haven't done these "birds" in a while, folks, so let's listen to this ballad. I was amazed to see that Bob Dylan begged the actors to change the ending of the movie. What a tender-hearted man the jester is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNjzzDNIJWw&feature=related
