Diana Lynn was born in 1926 in Los Angeles. Her film debut was in “They Shall Have Music”. She played Ginger Roger’s younger sister in “The Major and the Minor”. In 1944 she starred in “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek” directed by Preston Sturges. She was in Dean Marin and Jerry Lewis’s first film “My Friend Irma” in 1949. Her last film was “Company of Killers” in 1970. Diana Lynn died in 1971 at the age of 45.
TCM Profile:
A more-than-capable actress with chipper good looks and a pleasantly piquant personality, Diana Lynn began in films as a precocious adolescent and settled into a career as a dependable leading lady before stretching her acting muscles on the stage and, especially, in television.
Born Dolores Loehr in Los Angeles in 1926, Lynn was a musical prodigy who was playing piano professionally by the time she was 10. She made her movie debut at age 13 in Samuel Goldwyn’s They Shall Have Music(1939), unbilled as one of a group of classical music students. After a similar appearance at Paramount in There’s Magic in Music (1941), she signed a long-term contract at that studio and was groomed to become a featured player.
Lynn’s first film under her new contract, The Major and the Minor (1942), marked Billy Wilder’s U.S. directorial debut and Lynn’s emergence as a bright young spirit in films. In this comedy about a grown woman (Ginger Rogers) who poses as an 11-year-old girl, Lynn is the wisecracking youngster who sees through the ruse. She gained even more attention as Betty Hutton’s irrepressible kid sister in Preston Sturges’ The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944). Lynn played Emily Kimbrough to Gail Russell’s Cornelia Otis Skinner in the film version of the writers’ joint memoir Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944), a surprise hit that spawned a sequel, Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946).
The more mature Lynn starred in another successful pair of comedies, My Friend Irma (1949) and My Friend Irma Goes West (1950), playing straight woman in a cheerful style that allowed Marie Wilson (as Irma) and the new comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis to shine. In Every Girl Should Be Married (1949), Lynn plays third fiddle to Cary Grant and his wife-to-be, Betsy Drake, in the story of a young woman obsessed with landing a handsome pediatrician as her husband. Cast as the heroine’s sidekick and sparkling when she has the opportunity, Lynn might just as easily have taken on the lead. She performed yeoman service as Ronald Reagan’s intended bride in Bedtime for Bonzo, the future president’s most notorious vehicle; and as Spencer Tracy’s protective daughter in The People Against O’Hara (both 1951).
In the mid-1950s, Lynn starred in two films produced by John Wayne. In Plunder of the Sun (1953), she had a change of pace as a hard-drinking temptress with designs on Glenn Ford, who plays an insurance investigator smuggling a mysterious package from Cuba to Mexico. In William Wellman’s stylized Western Track of the Cat (1954), photographed in color on black-and-white locations with dashes of color, Lynn wears a yellow blouse to signify her character’s positive nature. (Villain Robert Mitchum wears a red coat.)
Lynn’s final feature film was Company of Killers (1970), a crime drama originally produced for television. She had turned to that medium in the 1950s and became one of its busiest and most accomplished performers in such series as Playhouse 90 and The U.S. Steel Hour. She shone in Katharine Hepburn’s old role in a 1959 TV version of The Philadelphia Story and also had some success on Broadway, especially as a replacement for Barbara Bel Geddes in the hit comedy Mary, Mary in the early 1960s.
Lynn had settled in New York City, where she ran a travel agency after retiring from films. Her old studio, Paramount, offered her a choice role in Play It As It Lays (1972), and she returned to Los Angeles in preparation for a comeback in films. But she suffered a fatal stroke before production began, prematurely passing away at age 45 in 1971.
by Roger Fristoe
The above TCM profile can also be accessed online here.
Elizabeth Russell was born in 1916 in Philadelphia. She is particularly reknowned for her performances in some key horror films of the 1940’s including “Cat People” with Simone Simon in 1942, “Seventh Victim”, “Curse of the Cat People”and “Bedlam”.
IMDB Entry:
Minor character actress who appeared rather unsympathetically in a number of films for director Val Lewton in the 40s, including “The Seventh Victim,” “Bedlam” and “Cat People” and her best known part in “The Curse of the Cat People.”
Sister-in-law of Rosalind Russell.
Her first film assignment came almost immediately after her arrival at Paramount in Hollywood when she replaced Frances Farmer, who had been loaned to Samuel Goldwyn for the starring role in “Come and Get It, in “Girl of the Ozarks” opposite Farmer’s new husband Lief Erickson.
Russell met writer Peter Viertel through friend and roommate Maria Montez, and he introduced her to Val Lzewton. She ultimately appeared in five pictures for Lewton’s unit.
Russell wrote an as yet unproduced screenplay on the life of friend Maria Montez.
After Paramount dropped her and she returned East to act in theater with Zasu Pitts. Russell and the comedienne became good friends and Pitts had her cast in two of her films, “Miss Polly” and “So’s Your Aunt Emma.”.
Elonor Donahue will be forever remembered for her performance as Betty Anderson the eldest daughter of Robert Young and Jane Wyatt in the 1950’s long running television series “Father Knows Best”. She was born in 1937 in Tacoma, Washington. She was also featured in oher television programmes such as “The Andy Griffith Show” and “The Odd Couple”. Her films include 1947’s “The Unfinished Dance” with Margaret O’Brien.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Tap dancing at the age of 16 months, pert and pretty Elinor Donahue has been entertaining audiences for six decades. Born Mary Eleanor Donahue in Tacoma, Washington in 1937, she appeared as a radio singer and vaudeville dancer while still a mere toddler, then was picked up by Universal Studios at the age of 5. Cast in minor child roles in such pictures as Mister Big (1943), the precocious youngster eventually moved to MGM but didn’t attain the juvenile stardom of a Margaret O’Brien or Elizabeth Taylor, whom she supported in both The Unfinished Dance (1947) and Love Is Better Than Ever (1952), respectively. Still and all, Elinor’s talent and wholesome appeal was recognized and the 50s brought her into the TV era, where she became more accessible, finally winning nationwide “girl-next-door” notice in her late teens as the oldest daughter of “ideal” parents Robert Young and Jane Wyatt in the classic family show Father Knows Best (1954). Suffering more than her share of teen angst, she played Betty (“Princess”) Anderson from 1954 to 1960. By the time the series was finished, she seemed ripe for romantic ingénues. She became Andy Griffith‘s first longstanding girlfriend on The Andy Griffith Show (1960) for one season, but then suffered a major slump. She revived in the 70s with steady roles on The Odd Couple (1970) (as Tony Randall‘s girlfriend), Mulligan’s Stew: Pilot (1977) as a typical sunny mom, and as a guest for countless other shows, including Barnaby Jones (1973), Newhart (1982) and The Golden Girls (1985). An extremely pleasant personality, she was primarily tapped into playing nice, friendly, unflashy parts in both lightweight comedy and dramatic. Possessing a suitable voice for commercials and cartoons, she has lately found recurring roles on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993) and a few soaps, including Santa Barbara (1984) and Days of Our Lives(1965), the latter in which she played a rare malicious part. Though she may not have had much of a chance to shine in her career, Elinor has certainly been a steady, reliable player who has not let her fans down with her obvious warmth and pleasing disposition. The widow of TV executive producer Harry Ackerman (he was 25 years her senior), whose list of credits included Leave It to Beaver (1957), Bewitched (1964) and Gidget (1965), and a mother of four sons, Elinor lives with her third husband, contractor Louis Genevrino (married since 1992), in California. In 1998, she published a memoir entitled “In the Kitchen with Elinor Donahue”, in which she relived some of her memories of Hollywood along with providing more than 150 of her top-grade recipes.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Gene Nelson was born in Oregon in 1920. He served in the Army during World War Two and then began appearing on Broadway. On film he alternated between musicals where he was a talented dancer and gritty noir dramas. His films include “The Daoughter of Rosie O’Grady” in 1950, “Painting the Clouds With Sunshine”, “Oaklaholmaa, and “Crime Wave”. In 1971 he was in the cast on Broadway of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” with Alexis Smith and Yvonne de Carlo. He also directed films and television shows in his later years. Gene Nelson died in 1996 at the age of 76.
His IMDB entry:
Gene Nelson was barely a teen when he saw the Fred Astaire movie Flying Down to Rio(1933), which would change his life. It was then that he decided he would be a dancer. After graduating from high school, Nelson joined the Sonja Henie Ice Show and toured for 3 years before joining the Army in World War II. After he was discharged, he appeared in a handful of movies before 1950. He worked with Debbie Reynolds in The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady (1950), Doris Day in Tea for Two (1950) and Virginia Mayo in She’s Working Her Way Through College (1952). He would be best known for his role of cowboy Will Parker in Oklahoma! (1955), where he would twirl the lasso to the tune of “Kansas City”.
Frankie Laine was born in 1913 in Chicago. He was especially popular as a singer during the 1940’s and 50’s. His songs include “That Lucky Old Son”, “Mule Train”, “Cry of the Wild Goose”, “Jezebel”, “High Noon”, “Answer Me” and “Rawhide”.He made a number of films mostly for Columbia Studios and they include “Make Believe Ballromm” in 1949 and “Sunny Side of the Street”. He was married to actress Nan Gray. Frankie Laine died in 2007 at the age of 93.
His “Independent” obituary by Spencer Leigh:
Bob Hope once called Frankie Laine “a foghorn with lips”, an amusing but accurate description, as Laine is best-known for his powerful, full-blooded treatment of tales of ill-fated romantic liaisons, religious ballads and western songs, such as “Jezebel”, “I Believe” and “Rawhide”. Although he displayed more range in his lesser-known singles and album tracks (such as the racial lament “Black and Blue”), the public preferred him bellowing out ballads with supreme confidence. If ever a singer could be called a man’s man, it was Frankie Laine.
Like many of his show-business contemporaries, Laine came from an Italian background. He was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio in 1913 to Sicilian immigrants in Chicago’s Little Italy. His father was a barber who had cut Al Capone’s hair and his grandfather had been the victim of a mob killing. The young LoVecchio was a choirboy at the Immaculate Conception church. When he saw the film The Singing Fool (1928), starring Al Jolson, he determined to become an entertainer.
Although he did make some club appearances, his first success came in 1932 when he took part in a marathon dance contest. “I had 45 minutes on and 15 minutes off in every hour,” he said:
It went on like that for 24 hours a day for four and a half months. It sounds ridiculous but I had nothing else to do and there were no expenses. My partner and I won $1,000 between us, which was a lot of money then. We also collected tips from the people who came to see us.
He was not exaggerating: he and Ruth Smith danced for 3,501 hours over 145 consecutive days to create a world record.
In 1937, Perry Como left his job as the vocalist with the Freddy Carlone orchestra and LoVecchio replaced him. After that, he became a singer on a New York radio station, teaming up with the pianist Carl Fischer for a night-club act. In 1946 the songwriter Hoagy Carmichael heard LoVecchio perform one of his songs, “Rocking Chair”, at Billy Berg’s club in Vine Street, Hollywood. He recommended him to Mitch Miller at Mercury Records and also told LoVecchio to adopt a simpler name. As Frankie Laine, he won a gold disc with his first record, “That’s My Desire” (1947). Laine recalled, “That record started selling in Harlem first of all because everyone assumed I must be black.” All his fan-club members received a miniature gramophone record which either said “Hello, baby” or “Hi ya, guy”, before going into six bars of “That’s My Desire”.
Laine had further successes with “S-H-I-N-E”, “On the Sunny Side of the Street” and “We’ll Be Together Again”, which featured his own lyric. Another of his songs from this period, “It Only Happens Once”, was recorded by Nat “King” Cole. When he was talking with Mel Tormé, one of them said, “It ain’t gonna be like that”, which prompted them to write a song of the same title that Laine recorded.
Laine’s bellowing style was heard to good effect on “Mule Train” (1949), which he sang to a whip-cracking accompaniment. He made his film début in When You’re Smiling (1950) and sang the title song. Although he made several romantic comedies, Laine never appeared with his second wife, Nan Grey, a leading lady from the 1930s, whom he married in 1950.
In 1950 Laine followed Mitch Miller to Columbia Records and Miller found him one hit song after another. Songs like “Jezebel” and “Satan Wears a Satin Dress” were regarded as controversial for their religious references. “I didn’t pay much attention to all the fuss being made over them,” Laine told me in 1978:
I was being given great songs to sing and I’d have been a fool to turn them down. “Jezebel” is still a great song. It’s the sort of song you’ve got to close on. How can you top a finish like that?
When the first UK record sales chart was published in November 1952, Laine was at No 7 with the theme song from the Gary Cooper film High Noon and at No 8 with “Sugarbush”, a romantic duet with Doris Day. Speaking of High Noon, he commented, “I didn’t sing that song in the film, although I’d have been glad to have done so. Tex Ritter did the soundtrack, but I had the hit.”
Because of its success, Laine was then asked to sing western soundtracks including Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), 3.10 to Yuma (1957) and The Hanging Tree (1959) as well as the theme song for Rawhide, which was Laine’s final Top Ten hit in the UK in 1959. “I was very grateful for that TV series as it kept me on the air for seven and a half years,” Laine said:
I also had a part in one of the episodes. Clint Eastwood was in the series, but no one dreamed that he’d ever make it big, least of all Clint himself.
Despite his own rugged demeanour and his love of western songs, Laine never made any westerns himself. “It’s simply that I was never offered anything suitable,” he said:
I can see with hindsight that it might have been a good thing to have made some westerns, but I never plan my life. I drift along. I’m the sort of person who considers what comes in rather than the type who goes out to make things happen. I’m willing to have a go at most things. If someone saw me as a New York detective or as the King of Spain, I’d do it.
The religious ballad “I Believe” was Laine’s biggest success, topping the UK charts for 18 weeks in 1953.
The song accomplished an awful lot in its day because it said all the things that needed to be said in a prayer, and yet it didn’t use any of the holy words – Lord, God, Him, His, Thine, Thou. It said it all and it changed the whole spectrum of faith songs.
Astonishingly, Laine topped the UK charts for 27 weeks in 1953, “Hey Joe” occupying one week and “Answer Me” another eight. The last-named was another “God-botherer”. The singer, to an organ accompaniment, is asking God what has gone wrong with his relationship. Because many US radio stations refused to play the record, Nat “King” Cole shrewdly recorded an amended version, “Answer Me, My Love”. Laine himself recorded the revised lyric for South Africa and both lyrics are well-known today.
With the advent of rock’n’roll in the mid-Fifties, Laine began to appear old-fashioned, although his style influenced Tom Jones. He sought songs from the new Brill Building writers, the best example being “Don’t Make My Baby Blue” (1963). His contract with Columbia ended in 1963. “I spent some time considering offers and I signed with Capitol,” he said:
We spent two months getting the material ready for an album, but before it came out, Capitol received the masters of some group from Liverpool. That was the Beatles. They started selling like crazy and I was ignored.
Laine switched to ABC Records and returned to the US charts in 1967 with “I’ll Take Care of Your Cares”. He followed it in 1969 with the very successful “You Gave Me a Mountain”. “Marty Robbins was a friend of mine and he gave that song to me,” Laine recalled:
I knew right away that it was going to do well. He then wrote “My Woman, My Woman, My Wife” for me, but his wife wouldn’t let me have it and made him keep it for himself.
In 1974 Laine recorded the theme song for the spoof western Blazing Saddles. The film’s director, the actor Mel Brooks, had heard Laine singing “Cry of the Wild Goose” on the Merv Griffin Show. “He’d just finished his picture and so he asked me to sing the theme song,” Laine said. “I did the song straight because I had no idea that the film was a comedy. As it turned out, it worked fine.”
Although Laine continued to tour, he was plagued with health problems and had quadruple bypass heart surgery in 1985. It didn’t affect his performance and he still favoured songs with big endings. With the exception of Jazz Spectacular in 1956, Laine never concentrated on albums, but this changed in the 1980s, with albums like Country Laine (1987), which included a beautiful, whimsical ballad, “She Never Could Dance”, and New Directions (1988) among his best.
He contributed three songs to a western album, Roundup (1987), with Eric Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and was surprised to find himself on the US classical chart. He also recorded a CD of standards, Wheels of a Dream (1998) and a CD of songs “for people who have reached the age of retirement”, It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over (also 1998). A video filmed in Las Vegas, Live at the Orleans, was released in 1999, but, in his later years, Laine took more interest in the value of his investments.
Laine wrote his autobiography, That Lucky Old Son, in 1993 and, although he had not written many songs, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1996. He was proud when the compilation album Lyrics by Laine was released in 1999.
Spencer Leigh
The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Guy Mitchell was a very popular singer in the 1950’s who did go on to make a few movies. He was born in 1927 in Detroit. He was discoved by Mitch Miller of Columbia Records in 1950 and the following year had a hit record “My Heart Cries For You”. His songs were massive sellers and included “Truly Fair”, “Pawnshop on the Corner”, “She Wears Red Feathers” and “Singing the Blues”. Among his films was “Red Garters” with Rosemary Clooney. Guy Mitchell died in 1999 at the age of 72.
His “Independent” obituary by Laurence Staig:
Guy MITCHELL was a crooner, a popular singing star noted for “novelty” hits which contained such memorable lines as “She wears red feathers and a hula-hula skirt” and “Heartaches by the number, troubles by the score”
He specialised in gimmicky, sing-along songs that wallowed in a bizarre kind of bouncy sentimentality. Sex and sensuality were taboo, love was a cheerful business. Even when heartache and sadness reared their heads they would be sung to an optimistic up-tempo beat. He courted a clean- cut, all-American image, seeing himself first and foremost as a family entertainer.
He was born Al Cernick in 1927 and grew up in Detroit, Michigan, his parents having emigrated from Yugoslavia to the United States. When interviewed by the New Musical Express in 1955, he declared that his new “basic goal in life” was to be less of a “good-time Charlie”, and to work as hard as he could. “I’m also looking for a girl who likes to dance and laugh, and who loves children – because I want as many kids as possible!”
Mitchell began his show business career at an early age, working for the Warner Brothers studio before the war, as a child actor and singer. He emerged as a successful and popular entertainer. In 1945 he joined the US Navy for a short period before accepting an invitation to join the Carmen Cavallaro band as the featured vocalist the following year.
Winning an Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts Award in 1949 ensured a record contract. By 1950 he had relinquished his acting career in favour of singing, and signed with Columbia under the direction and distinctive style of their head of A & R, the producer and avowed enemy of rock’n’roll Mitch Miller.
Mitchell’s first hit was “My Heart Cries For You”, adapted from a traditional 18th-century French melody by the bandleader Percy Faith. The song was a typical sentimental ballad, and Mitchell was in danger of being launched as yet another big-voiced balladeer. However, a distinctive and commercial style emerged when he recorded a version of a well-known English sea shanty, “The Roving Kind”, the following year.
The song had first been recorded by the British folk group the Weavers. Mitchell’s influence came from Jessie Cavanaugh and Arnold Stanton’s version, originally titled “The Pirate Ship”. His version was a great success, delivered with a lusty and jocular arrangement, owing more to the original sea-shanty style. Mitch Miller immediately recognised the potential of this successful formula and used it for most of Mitchell’s subsequent records and hits, as well as the sing-along basis for his own songs. Miller had decided to model Mitchell’s future style on the “folk-origin” element, a feature which had made “The Roving Kind” so popular.
The songwriter Bob Merrill was added to the team, and was asked to write songs for Mitchell modelled on Terry Gilkyson, who had provided Frankie Laine with the hit “The Cry of the Wild Goose”. Merrill was a prolific writer, also well-known for his songs recorded by Patti Page and Rosemary Clooney. Together the trio were to produce an astonishing run of chart successes which was to ensure Mitchell’s popularity. These included: “My Truly, Truly Fair” (1951) and “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania” (1952), both million-sellers; “Sparrow in the Tree-Top” (1951) and “Feet Up (Pat Him on the Po-Po)” (1952) . He also had some success with a cover version of Hank Williams’s “I Can’t Help It”.
Miller often featured in duets: with Rosemary Clooney in the song “You’re Just in Love”, taken from the Broadway musical hit Call Me Madam, and in a number of other songs with Mindy Carson and Paul Whiteman. He was frequently broadcast on radio.
His first No 1 hit in the UK came with Bob Merrill’s “She Wears Red Feathers”. This entered the British charts in March 1953 and remained there for four weeks. The song was more successful in Britain than in the United States, where it peaked at No 19. According to one critic the British success was because of the bizarre nature of the storyline, concerning an English banker’s love for a hula-hula girl.
Mitchell gained another No 1 hit in September 1953 (for six weeks), with the Merrill-penned “Look at That Girl”. The record was a flop in the US and marked the last real success of the Mitchell/ Merrill/Miller team. The catchy formula of the “Red Feather” song was repeated in 1954 with “Chick a Boom” (about a wealthy Eskimo lady), but the record only reached No 4 in the UK chart.
By the mid-1950s it appeared that Mitchell’s folk-influenced successes and chart career were beginning to dry up, when he obtained his biggest success with a cover version of the Marty Robbins rhythm and blues-cum- country classic, “Singing the Blues”.
Mitch Miller provided the Ray Conniff Orchestra as accompaniment, giving the song a very different feel to the jerky skiffle-rock treatment in an alternative version by the newcomer Tommy Steele. It had been written by the polio victim Melvin Endsley, who felt that the Steele version came closer to his intentions. Both were great successes, however, and in the United States the Mitchell version remained in the No 1 slot for over 10 consecutive weeks. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the song is one of the most successful ever recorded.
Mitchell continued to record in a country vein, but failed to achieve the same degree of success that he had attracted with his earlier jocular songs. His last big success was in 1959 with a cover of Ray Price’s “Heartaches by the Number”, written by Harlan Howard. He is probably best remembered for this song.
In the 1960s he recorded little and retired the following decade, although he continued to make appearances, and was a frequent visitor to Britain, his last UK tour being in 1996. In the summer of 1991 he undertook an Australian concert tour, but, whilst out riding at a friend’s farm near Sydney, he was seriously injured when thrown from his horse.
For the past few years, he had been living and working in Las Vegas. His last record was “Dusty the Magic Elf”, a children’s record, in 1996, and at the time of his death, he was negotiating to make a Christmas album.
He was married three times: first to Jackie Loughery, a former Miss USA, in 1952; secondly to Elsa Soronson, formerly Miss Denmark, in 1956; and had recently celebrated 25 years of marriage to his third wife, Betty. Al Cernick (Guy Mitchell), singer: born Detroit, Michigan 22 February 1927; three times married; died Las Vegas, Nevada 2 July 1999.
The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Karen Lynn Gorney is known for one major role, Stephanie Mangano in “Saturday Night Fever” in 1977 opposite John Travolta. She was born in Beverly Hills, California in 1945. From 1970 until 1974 she had a recurring role on television’s “All My Children”.
IMDB entry:
Karen Lynn Gorney is the romantic star of Saturday Night Fever (1977): the dance partner and fantasy girlfriend who said “no” to John Travolta, and won his heart in this mega-hit film, recently released on DVD to raves. Miss Gorney is also the legendary “Tara Martin” (Tad’s big sister, Erica’s mortal enemy) on ABC’s award-winning All My Children (1970). A classically trained Actress, and winner of the People’s Choice and European Bravo Awards, Karen holds a BFA from Carngie Mellon and MFA from Brandeis University in Acting and Speech. She has received raves in New York City and throughout the United States performing everything from William Shakespeare to Neil Simon. Karen has 5 new films in the can including A Crime (2006) with Harvey Keitel, and Searching for Bobby D(2005) [DeNiro] with Sandra Bernhard. The daughter of the composer of “Brother Can you Spare a Dime” (Jay Gorney), Karen’s new CD of her Dad’s hits called “Hot Moonlight!” is in stores now, and has received international acclaim.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Karen Lynn Gorney
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Jack Albertson was born in 1907 in Malden, Mass. He is best known for his performance in “Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” as Granpa Joe in 1971. Other films include “The Subject Was Roses”, “The Poseidon Adventure” and the television series “Chico and the Man”. Jack Albertson died in California in 1981 at the age of 74.
TCM Overview:
An incredibly prolific, talented and frequently underappreciated actor, Jack Albertson was one of the most accomplished performers of his generation. Emerging from the vaudeville circuit and bawdy burlesque shows of New York in the 1930s, Albertson soon graduated to such Broadway stage productions as the 1947 revival of “The Cradle Will Rock.” Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the actor worked non-stop, jumping from television to film and back to theater in such vehicles as the crime-comedy series “The Thin Man” (NBC, 1957-59), the cautionary drama “Days of Wine and Roses” (1962) and the Broadway play “The Subject was Roses” in 1965. As busy as he had been for more than 20 years, it was in the 1970s that Albertson gained lasting notoriety amongst a generation of fans for a trio of roles as good-natured, but cantankerous old men. In theaters, he endeared himself to fans young and old with his characters in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (1971) and “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972). But it was as the crotchety father figure to Freddie Prinze on the hit sitcom “Chico and the Man” (NBC, 1974-78) that Albertson would perhaps be most fondly remembered. A testament to his talent and lasting contributions could, in part, be measured by the fact that Albertson remained one of the select few to ever earn Oscar, Emmy and Tony awards over the course of his impressive career.
Jack Albertson was born on June 16, 1907 in the town of Malden, MA to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Flora and Leopold Albertson. Although she helped support the family by working in a shoe factory, Flora also performed in local theater as a stock actress. Soon, both Jack and his sister Mabel followed their mother’s footsteps into show business. It was an ambition that led the young man to drop out of high school and travel to New York City while still in his teens. Lacking funds to rent a room, Albertson slept in empty train cars and in the vast expanse of Central Park during those first lean years as he sought work as an entertainer. Like many young performers of the day, Albertson’s first paying jobs were in the then-thriving vaudeville circuit, working with comedians like Phil Silvers during the 1930s in New York productions of Minsky’s Burlesque and other troupes. After gaining considerable stage experience, he later appeared in a 1947 revival of the famed proletariat drama “The Cradle Will Rock” on Broadway.
An early film role for Anderson came that same year with a bit part in the beloved holiday classic “Miracle on 34th Street” (1947), in which he had a small but pivotal role as a mail clerk looking to unload the thousands of letters addressed to Santa. Though the increasingly busy actor would keep his feet in both mediums to an almost equal degree, it would be television that would increasingly provide him with work and exposure. Among the multitude of appearances throughout the 1950s were several guest spots on the hugely popular comedy-variety program “The Jackie Gleason Show” (CBS, 1952-57). Back in movie houses, Albertson popped up in such productions as Humphrey Bogart’s final film, “The Harder They Fall” (1956). At about the same time, he landed the first of his many recurring roles with a supporting character on “The Thin Man” (NBC, 1957-59), a short-lived television adaptation of the popular film franchise, this time starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk as author Dashiell Hammett’s crime-solving socialites, Nick and Nora Charles.
With each passing year, Albertson’s talents grew in demand, bringing him onto projects with the best and brightest, including the Clark Gable-Doris Day romantic comedy “Teacher’s Pet” (1958), and the acclaimed Blake Edwards film “Days of Wine and Roses” (1962), starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick as a married couple who descend into alcoholism. Other film work found him buddying up with Elvis Presley for a pair of back-to-back musicals, “Kissin’ Cousins” (1964) and “Roustabout” (1964). Occasionally, Albertson returned to stage work and in 1964 enjoyed Broadway success as the harsh, emotionally distant father in the intense family drama “The Subject was Roses,” with a performance that won him a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actor. In a run of lightweight feature comedies, the versatile Albertson supported Lemmon once more in “How to Murder Your Wife” (1965), George C. Scott in “The Flim Flam Man” (1967) and Dean Martin in “How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life” (1968).
Recreating the role of John Cleary onscreen opposite Martin Sheen and Patricia Neal several years later, Albertson won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the film adaptation of “The Subject was Roses” (1968). The breadth of material the veteran actor appeared in was impressive, by any measure. Two years later, Albertson worked alongside ’70s megastar James Caan in the adaptation of John Updike’s “Rabbit, Run” (1970), then delivered a role forever imbedded in the recollection of an entire generation – that of Grandpa Joe in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (1971), starring Gene Wilder as the eccentric candy maker. Another of his most memorable feature performances came in the blockbuster Irwin Allen disaster movie, “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972), in which he and a rag-tag group of survivors – among them, Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine and Gene Hackman – attempt to climb their way to safety inside a massive, overturned ocean liner. In 1972, Albertson made a triumphant return to Broadway to star opposite actor Sam Levene in Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys” for a lengthy run. Understandably, he later expressed his regret over not being asked to reprise the role in the filmed adaptation, which starred George Burns and Walter Matthau.
His biggest role, however, was still ahead of him. Albertson later won an Emmy for a role with which he would be forever remembered. As the cantankerous, but good-natured garage owner Ed Brown, Albertson at last struck TV series gold on the sitcom “Chico and the Man” (NBC, 1974-78), opposite rising stand-up comedian, Freddie Prinze. The hit show was at the top of the ratings during its first two seasons and remained near the top during its third, until the tragic death of Prinze, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the peak of his fame, sending the program into a tailspin. Bringing in new characters to fill the void left by Prinze, the producers attempted a fourth season, but the sitcom never recovered and was canceled by the end of the year. It was also a devastating blow to Albertson on a personal level, as the older actor had quickly developed a deeply paternal relationship with the talented, yet deeply troubled comic. With his Emmy win for this work on “Chico and the Man,” Albertson became one of the select few performers to achieve “triple crown” status, having earned Oscar, Tony and Emmy awards.
Following the end of “Chico and the Man,” Albertson attempted to rebound with another series, “Grandpa Goes to Washington” (1978-79). However, the sitcom, in which he played a curmudgeonly retired professor with no political experience who is elected to the U.S. Senate, ran a mere seven episodes before being canceled. Never one to let a momentary setback slow him down, he lent his voice to the Disney animated feature “The Fox and the Hound” (1981). That same year, in a marked departure from his usual fare, Albertson starred in the grisly horror film “Dead & Buried” (1981), in which he played a maniacal mortician obsessed with reanimating the dead. Keeping up a remarkably hectic work schedule for a man in his seventies, the actor also starred in the made-for-TV movie “Charlie and the Great Balloon Race” (NBC, 1981) as a retired railroad worker attempting to cross the country via hot-air balloon. Even more surprising was the fact that during this period, Albertson – unbeknownst to nearly everyone – was a very sick man. Jack Albertson died on Nov. 25, 1981 after a years-long battle with cancer at the age of 74. Having worked right up until his passing, he later appeared posthumously in the family values TV special “Grandpa, Will You Run with Me?” (NBC, 1983).
By Bryce Coleman
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Gordon Scott was one of the better movie Tarzans. He was born in 1926 in Portland, Oregon. He served in the United States Army from 1944 until 1947. He made his movie debut in 1955 in “Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle”. In the early 1960’s he joined other Hollywood stars in Italy to make Roan epics and Westerns. He died in the U.S. in 2007.
Gordon Scott
Ronald Bergan’s “Guardian” obituary:
If filmgoers were asked to name a screen Tarzan, most of them would inevitably answer Johnny Weissmuller, who portrayed Edgar Rice Burroughs’ jungle hero in 12 movies. Gordon Scott, who has died aged 80, was the second most successful Tarzan, appearing in six films in the series between 1955 and 1960. Scott, arguably the most handsome of the Hollywood Tarzans, probably had a better build than the 17 others, weighing 218lbs with 19in biceps and standing 6ft 3in, all of which helped him continue his career in Italian “sword and sandals” epics. Born Gordon Werschkul in Portland, Oregon, he majored in physical education at the University of Oregon, but dropped out after one semester.
He then joined the army becoming an infantry drill instructor, then a military policeman. After leaving the army in 1947, he took various jobs as a fireman, cowboy, and farm machinery salesman. In 1953, while working as a lifeguard at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, the 26-year-old was spotted by a pair of Hollywood agents, who introduced him to the RKO producer Sol Lesser, who was looking for a new Tarzan to replace the 35-year-old Lex Barker.
After Scott auditioned for the part by climbing trees, jumping into pools and swinging from artificial vines for six hours, Lesser gave him a seven-year contract and a new surname (Werschkul was rather similar to Weissmuller), and cast him in Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle (1955). Shot cheaply in California, with stock footage of African wildlife, the routine film was not the best launch for a new Tarzan. Though Scott, who had never acted before (“Tarzan was ideal for me because I didn’t have too much dialogue”), looked the part, he gave a wooden performance and drew unfavourable comparisons with previous actors in the role. However, during the shooting, he married his co-star Vera Miles, who played the nurse Tarzan rescues from restless natives. Tarzan and the Lost Safari (1957) for MGM was the first of the series in colour, the first in widescreen and the first to be shot almost entirely in Africa featuring “14 Different Tribes!” according to the studio publicity. For Tarzan’s Fight for Life (1958), he was given a Jane for the first time in the shape of Eve Brent. Scott, who was always keen to do as many stunts himself as was allowed, got to wrestle an 18-and-a-half foot python which, in reality, nearly strangled him and required six men to pull off. It was the last of the Tarzan movies produced by Lesser who, according to Scott, was “a cheap prick … I never liked him”, and was the last in which the loin-clothed hero was merely a monosyllabic hunk.
Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959) lived up to its title, which prompted Burroughs’ grandson, Danton, to proclaim: “Scott was a wonderful Tarzan who played the character as an intelligent and nice man, who carried himself well, much as my grandfather had originally written him. He also gave a wonderful rendition of Tarzan’s call, which didn’t have so much yodel in it.” Indeed, Scott proved himself an extremely capable performer when given the chance to speak whole English sentences. Shot in Africa, the film and the character were much tougher and more realistic than their predecessors. In one scene, Tarzan shoots a man at point blank range with an arrow, and the villains, led by Anthony Quayle, are pretty vicious. Scott’s last film before exchanging his loincloth for a toga, Tarzan the Magnificent (1960), had a similar realistic tone. It also dropped the character’s famous animal call, which the producers felt had been too often parodied.
In his first Italian muscleman spectacle, Duel of the Titans (1961), Scott’s Remus fights Steve Reeves’ Romulus over the daughter of the King of the Sabines (Virna Lisi). The producers originally wanted Reeves to play both the twin brothers, but the ex-Mr Universe recommended his former weight-training buddy Scott as co-star. In the same year, Scott, having settled in Rome, found himself rescuing slave women from an evil zombie leader who needs their blood to feed his soldiers in Goliath and the Vampires. There followed more than a dozen of these – dubbed “peplum” (tunic) epics – in the next five years, mostly with Scott interchangeably named Goliath (Maciste in the Italian versions), Samson or Hercules, always performing great feats of strength such as causing an earthquake by moving a mountain in which he is buried alive in Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World (1961). At the end of his screen career, Scott made a couple of spaghetti westerns: Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West (1965), playing the title role, and The Tramplers (1966), as well as a risible James-Bond-type thriller Death Ray (1967), in which he was Superspy Bart Fargo.
In later years, Scott, who was a big spender during his days of stardom, lived with various friends and went around the autograph show circuit. In 2001, he took up an offer to visit a couple of fans, Roger and Betty Thomas, in Baltimore. He remained in their back bedroom for the last six years of his life. Scott, who is survived by his son by Vera Miles, and two other children from two other marriages, recalled that acting spoiled him for anything else in life. “The money’s so easy, you meet beautiful people. My God, that’s the ideal situation – kind of a fantasy world. It’s the best way to travel too. First class, and you get to see a lot of interesting places.”
· Gordon Scott (Gordon Merrill Werschkul), actor, born August 3 1926; died April 30 2007
The above obituary can also be accessed online here.
