I feel like folks have been trying to bring author/educator/actress/scholar/collector Mari Lin Henry and myself together for decades, while circumstances always seemingly conspired to preven…
Four of five Australian Bennett siblings figure in Hollywood history. I became interested in Enid Bennett (1893-1969) because she played Maid Marian to Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood (1922) a…
July 13, 2022 marks the 80th birthday of Jim "Roger" McGuinn, founder of The Byrds. Right away a storytelling complication: McGuinn changed his name to Roger in 1967 as an outgrowth of his i…
Oriska Worden (1868-?) was one of those who but dabbled in the vaudeville circuits, being more a creature of the legit and opera stages. A product of the post Civil War baby boom, she was th…
Born of a July 12, the great Broadway lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960). Best known today for his decade-and-a-half collaboration with Richard Rodgers, my perverse pleasure this morn…
"La Goulue" ("The Glutton") was the professional name of Parisian dancer Louise Weber (1866-1929) earned from her comical habit of snatching up drinks off of people's tables and guzzling the…
It's National Swimming Pool Day, and having already done a post on the ultimate swimming pool movie, The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster, today we thought we would present a brief snapshot of on…
I almost just gave you the best typo ever: John GIRL-bert (being intentional, it's not a typo anymore, but a witticism). The Hollywood star, born John Pringle (1897-1936) is easily discussed…
Today being the 100th birthday of the recently late Jake LaMotta, and he (and his sport) having been the topic of my first (and so far only) New York Times piece as a journalist, we thought …
They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then its night once more. We are all born mad. Some remain so. " Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot The life and death of Susan C…
A brief appreciation today for the genius of radio and cartoon voice-over actor Bill Thompson (1913-1971). A Terra Haute native, Thompson was the son of two performing vaudevillians. He was …
The title of this post is less an expression of what I'm up to than a call to action, a recommendation to re-evaluate for the admitted few who care. Today marks the 70th birthday of humorist…
Well, I was working on something pretty important just now but I just got the news about James Caan's passing, and that's a stop-the-presses situation. It's made me sadder than I would have …
I have no idea how I first learned about Pearl Hobson (1879-1919) but I'm glad I did, for her journey is a fascinating ride, as though you had plunked Josephine Baker down in the middle of D…
I have what I believe is an appropriate attitude toward screen auteur Sylvester Stallone (b. 1946). "Love-hate" is putting it too strongly; respect mingled with selective distaste is more ac…
The genuine New England Yankee, and the once universally known stereotype that went with it (once as recognized as the Southerner and the Westerner) is an endangered species, virtually extin…
Consider this less a review than a recommendation, and one we extend only to a certain type of reader. Jason Robert Bell's book The White Feathered Octopus was published a decade ago, but I …
Actor Stephen Boyd (William Millar, 1931-1977) was born on July 4. I don't know if that significant calendar date was something he celebrated, but in any case, though he sounded it, Boyd was…
Black character actor and comedian Johnny Lee (1898-1945) is best remembered as the shyster lawyer Calhoun from The Amos and Andy Show (1950-55) and for voicing Bre'r Rabbit in Walt Disney's…
Actor William Farnum (1876-1963) was a movie man in the middle: a middle brother (between actor Dustin and director Marshall), and a middle generation (his parents were actors; his daughter …
Some scattered bits on ventriloquist Phil D'Rey (David Cuthbert, d. 1970), pictured above with his wife/assistant Nell Calling (aka Sandra the Sand Artist) and the dummy "Dugan" or "Skinny D…
"He was still alive?" was my not unnatural question when I just now learned that theatre director Peter Brook passed way in Paris yesterday at age 97. When I was at theatre school (1986-88) …
Things have improved for screenwriters in recent decades but long about the mid 20th century they were by most measures invisible, swathed in anonymity, and forced to adapt impersonal styles…
In the mad frenzy to turn back the clock, the Supreme Court reached back more than twice the calendar distance of Roe v. Wade to overturn New York State's 1911 Sullivan Act, which requires a…
The name of Jack Hylton (1892-1965) was central to British popular culture for around four decades. One is tempted to call him the approximate English equivalent of Paul Whiteman, with a sig…