Goodbye Mr. Nimoy

I just learned that Leonard Nimoy has died at the age of 83 and my reaction has been unexpectedly emotional.  Star Trek was a big part of my childhood. I miss him already.

R.I.P. James Garner

There were some people, when I was a kid, who I never had to be told who they were, I just always knew. Doris Day, Carol Burnett, Julie Andrews, Lucille Ball. James Garner was one of those people.  Until a local TV station started rerunning Maverick when I was in high school I didn't even realize what a dish he was.  Not really my type ever, but I know a handsome man when I see one.  The thing that set him apart, I think, is that he always had a sense of humor.  He wasn't a comedian, he wasn't ironic, but he was always in on the joke. He never looked like he was trying too hard, but that was a complete illusion. The list of injuries he received while filming The Rockford Files would turn your blood cold.

He started out as a teenage swimsuit model, served in the Army in the Korean war, where he was injured twice, went on the stage in 1954, made his first movie in 1956,  and became a television star in 1957.  He was devoted to liberal causes and participated in the historic 1963 March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luthor King gave his "I Have A Dream" speech.  He met his bride-to-be at an Adlai Stevenson rally in 1956 and married her two weeks later.  The were still married fifty-eight years later. He continued acting as long as his health allowed.  He will be missed.

The Last Legend

My heart is broken. Farewell to the great Elaine Stritch.

Two Icons of My Youth R.I.P.

Two icons of my youth have passed away.  

Of course, everybody knows Ann B. Davis, world renown as Alice on the Brady Bunch, and to the generation before me as Schultzy on The Bob Cummings Show.  Her stock in trade was being a good egg. To the kids who watched The Brady Bunch, she represented the adult that they could really talk to without being judged. Also, and I say this without making any assumptions about her personal life, even though her characters often had opposite sex significant others (Sam the Butcher),  they were gay coded.  In her real life she was never married and devoted herself to the Episcopal Church.

Marilyn Beck was not as famous as Ann B. Davis, but she played an important role in my life.  Her  nationally syndicated Hollywood news column ran in The Cedar Rapids Gazette, and hundreds of other newspapers,  and in the time before the internet, and until the Cedar Rapids Public Library got a subscription to Variety,  was my main source of reliable news about the  entertainment industry. She also did TV, and was an internet pioneer, but it was her newspaper column, which I read with great care, that I will remember her by.

Farewell, Puck

R.I.P Mickey Rooney 1920 - 2014

R.I.P. Cory Monteith 1982-2013

It took me a while to decide whether I should say anything about the death of Cory Monteith, who, as you probably know,  was found dead in a Vancouver hotel room yesterday.  Trying not to jump to any conclusions, but he was just out of rehab, and had a long history of addiction. I can't say that I was a huge Cory fan, but Glee, as flawed as it is, meant a lot to me in its first few years.

No matter what you think of Glee,  it's always extra sad when someone who seems to have so much going for them is taken away at such a young age.  Cory, by all accounts a lovely person with a bad problem, leaves behind  friends, family, and a fiance.  My heart goes out to them.  The character of Finn Hudson meant a lot to a lot of people as well, and I feel for those people too.

It's a damn shame.

The Big Swimming Pool In The Sky

Esther Williams, the star of many M-G-M musicals, has died at the age of 91.  It's hard to believe in this day and age that there was a time when a person could become a major movie star based on the fact that she was a good swimmer,  but it's true.  It didn't hurt that she looked good in a bathing suit. To be fair, she was a pleasant presence on screen, and she was a passable  singer and dancer,  able to share a screen with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra  (in Take Me Out To The Ballgame) without making a fool of herself. 

R.I.P. Deanna Durbin

 

 

Deanna Durbin has died at the age of 91.  She was a huge star in the 1930s and 40s. How huge? Well, it's pretty clear that if it weren't for her, Universal Studios would not exist today. 

It's a well-known story, but I'll tell it anyway. In 1936 MGM signed two 14-year-old girl singers, Miss Durbin and Judy Garland, and paired them in a short subject called Every Sunday.  Deanna sang "opera" and Judy sang "swing.'  According to one version of events, Louis B. Mayer told his minions to fire "the fat one," and  Durbin was mistakenly let go. I don't really believe the story.  It's abundantly clear from watching Every Sunday that neither of those girls could be considered fat, even by Hollywood standards. Nevertheless, MGM dropped Durbin's option and Universal signed her, put her in a movie called Three Smart Girls, and a star was born.  Meanwhile,  MGM didn't know what to do with Garland and her career took several years to get up to speed. Durbin remained Universal's top draw until her retirement in 1948.  When she retired she really retired, no concerts, no comebacks, no retrospectives. .

The Beach Party In The Sky

 

What?  You thought I'd be writting about Margaret Thatcher?  This is how I will always remember Annette Funicello. The Mickey Mouse Club was already a  nostalgic remnant of a long distant past when I became acquainted with it through reruns on the local afternoon kiddie show in the mid 1970s.  Truth be told, I was immune to some of her more obvious charms,  but I always liked her, and I enjoyed living vicariously through her whenever cute boys like Tim Considine went gaga over her on Mickey Mouse Club serials like Spin and Marty and Annette.  Later, she was in all those beach party movies with Frankie Avalon, which were a gas, man, but she was not really the main attraction as far as I was concerned. She was a woman of limited talent, but whether she was pushing peanut butter in TV commercials, or turning up on talk shows,  she always seemed like sweetheart, which even more that her famous bosum, must have been the key to her success.

R.I.P Pauline Phillips

Dear Abby: Two men who claim to be father and adopted son just bought an old mansion across the street and fixed it up. We notice a very suspicious mixture of company coming and going at all hours — blacks, whites, Orientals, women who look like men and men who look like women. This has always been considered one of the finest sections of San Francisco, and these weirdos are giving it a bad name. How can we improve the neighborhood? — Nob Hill Residents

Dear Residents: You could move.

Pauline Phillips, a.k.a Abigail Van Buren 1918-2013

R.I.P. Miss Patti Page

The Singin' Rage, Miss Patti Page, one of the biggest pop stars of the 1950s, has passed away at 85 years of age.  Her biggest hit was The Tennessee Waltz, from 1950, but she had top ten hits right up until 1965. She also was in a few movies, but failed to take hold as a movie star. I first knew her, when I was a child in the 1970s, as the singer of How Much Is That Doggie In The Window.  She was pure vanilla, but there's a reason why vanilla is such a popular flavor.   Listen to her sing my favorite of her hits,  Old Cape Cod.