Betsy Drake was born in 1923 in Paris of American parents. She made her film debut in 1948 in “Every Girl Should be Married”. Other films include “Dancing in the Dark” with William Powell and “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter” with Jayne Mansfield in 1957. She was at one time married to Cary Grant. She died in 2015 at the age of 92.
Was a first-class passenger on the Andrea Doria along with Ruth Roman, and her son Dickie. Was saved from the ship after going onto the port side of the ship and finding that side’s boats useless because of the severe list. She was later rescued from the sinking liner.
She lost over $200,000 worth of jewelry as well as a book manuscript she was working on in the Andrea Doria accident in July 1956.
Her grandfather, Tracy C. Drake, and his brother built the Drake Hotel in Chicago.
“Telegraph” obituary:
Betsy Drake, who has died aged 92, was an actress who became the third, and most long-lasting, wife of Cary Grant.
Grant had first set eyes on Betsy on the London stage in 1947, and when, by coincidence, they both found themselves on the Queen Mary returning to the United States, he effected an introduction. When the liner docked in New York, Betsy bolted into the heart of the city to get away from him, but he sought her out. Within months he had persuaded her to move to Los Angeles, where she signed with RKO and David O Selznick and then found screen stardom opposite Grant in Every Girl Should Be Married (1948), as a woman in pursuit of her romantic prey.
Fan magazines of the late 1940s reported a fairy-tale courtship. The pair made headlines when they flew to Arizona to marry on Christmas Day 1949, with their pilot and Grant’s best man, Howard Hughes. Betsy Drake went on to appear in starring roles in Dancing in the Dark (1949) with William Powell, Pretty Baby (1950) with Dennis Morgan, and Room for One More (1952), with her husband, before she decided to put her marriage ahead of her career.
Grant’s first marriage, to the actress Virginia Cherrill, had lasted only a year, and his second, to the Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, ended after three years. But as far as the public was concerned, he and Betsy had perfected the ideal marriage, and Betsy was often asked for her advice on how to maintain a happy relationship. She was at her husband’s side in Cannes in 1954 while he made To Catch a Thief with Alfred Hitchcock, and in 1956 she travelled to Spain to join him on the set of The Pride and the Passion.
But it was there she realised her husband was falling in love with his co-star Sophia Loren. Furious and upset, she ran off before the press found out and sailed back to New York on the ill-fated Italian liner Andrea Doria, which collided with another ship off the coast of Nantucket and capsized. Betsy Drake was one of the 1,660 passengers and crew rescued. She lost $200,000 worth of jewellery and, although she was physically unharmed, the disaster seems to have had a huge psychological impact.
The actress Rosalind Russell later recalled that Betsy Drake “simply stopped functioning, either as an actress or in any other field in which she had once been interested”.
Things went from bad to worse after Sophia Loren came to America to star with Grant in the romantic comedy Houseboat (1958). Betsy Drake had written an early script for the film, hoping that it would be a vehicle for her and Grant. But Grant insisted the script be reworked with Sophia Loren playing Betsy’s role.
Looking for a way to alleviate her emotional turmoil, Betsy took the advice of a friend who recommended she try a new therapy called LSD. She became a fervent convert and persuaded her husband that he might benefit from it too. Grant became involved in some 100 therapy sessions over several years and became the hallucinogenic drug’s most visible advocate several years before Dr Timothy Leary. Indeed Leary recalled that it was reading about the actor’s use of the drug that persuaded him to give LSD a try.
Betsy Drake credited LSD with giving her the courage to leave her husband. “After an LSD session, one morning in bed while we were both having breakfast, Cary asked me a question and I said, ‘Go f— yourself’,” she recalled. “He jumped out of bed, buttoning the top of his pyjamas, his bare bottom showing, and slammed the bathroom door. That was the true beginning of the end.”
She and Grant were divorced in 1962 after 13 years of marriage.
Betsy Gordon Drake was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, on September 11 1923 to wealthy parents. Her grandfather had built Chicago’s Drake and Blackstone hotels. After the crash of 1929 the Drakes returned to Chicago, where Betsy was parked at the Drake with a nanny while her parents lived at the Blackstone. They soon divorced and Betsy’s mother suffered a nervous breakdown. Betsy spent the rest of her childhood being shuttled between relatives in Washington DC, Virginia, and Connecticut.
She found solace in acting and, after dropping out of high school, made the rounds of New York auditions, modelling and understudying on Broadway until she was cast by Elia Kazan for a production of Deep Are the Roots, opening in London. It was there that she was spotted by Cary Grant.
When rumours circulated that Grant was gay, Betsy Drake memorably replied to the effect that they were too busy making love for her to ask (she used an earthier expression). But she reflected later that she felt he had never loved her: “I lost myself trying to please him. The only way we could see to save us was by getting into yoga and LSD, but that didn’t work either.”
She and Grant, who married twice more, remained friendly. Meanwhile her experiences with LSD led her to take an interest in mental health and she began volunteering at hospitals for the mentally ill. In the early 1970s she published a novel and enrolled at Harvard, earning a Master’s of Education in Psychology.
Betsy Drake eventually moved to London. She never remarried.
Betsy Drake, born September 11 1923, died October 27 2015
The above “Telegraph” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Sydney Chaplin obituary in “The Guardian” in 2009.
Sydney Chaplin was the third son of the great Charlie Chaplin. His mother was the actress Lita Grey. He was born in Los Angeles in 1926. His films include “Limelight” in 1952, “Land of the Pharoahs” and “Confession”. In 1957 he starred on Broadway opposite Judy Holliday in “The Bells Are Ringing” and in 1964 he was starring with Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl”. He died in 2009.
David Robinson’s “Guardian” obituary:
Sydney Chaplin, who has died aged 82, achieved brief Broadway fame, an on-and-off film career, and a vivid private life, without being too much awed or overshadowed by being the son of the great Charlie Chaplin. He was the second son of Chaplin’s tempestuous second marriage to the teenage actor Lita Grey. By the time of Sydney’s birth, relations between his parents had totally broken down. In November 1926 Lita removed Sydney and his older brother, Charles, from the Chaplin home.
The 1927 divorce settlement granted her custody, but the boys were mostly brought up by their still-youthful maternal grandmother, while Lita attempted to make a career as a singer. With their grandmother and her boyfriend, they spent most of one year in and around Nice, where they learned French. Lita insisted on calling her son “Tommy” on account of her distaste for Charlie Chaplin’s half-brother Sydney, after whom he had been officially named.
In 1932 Charlie Chaplin brought a successful action to prevent Lita putting the children into films. A positive result of this conflict was that Chaplin was stirred to re-establish contact with his sons, who from this time spent most weekends with him, incidentally falling deeply in love with his new live-in companion, Paulette Goddard. As they grew older they became still closer to their father, and, in the 1940s, after his separation from Paulette, were favourite chaperones when Chaplin Sr dined out with female stars who were nearer their age than his.
Sydney was variously educated at the Black-Foxe military institute, Lawrenceville preparatory school, New Jersey, and North Hollywood high; and did war service in the 65th Infantry Division. In 1946, he joined his friend Jerry Epstein, the actor Kathleen Freeman and students from UCLA in forming the Circle Theatre. The first performances were given in a friend’s drawing-room, but later a corner grocery store was converted into a theatre.
Props were borrowed from the Chaplin studios, and, nostalgic for his own theatre days, Charlie Chaplin himself took a hand with direction, or would happily sit beside Epstein in the box office. The theatre became Hollywood’s first centre of avant-garde drama; William Saroyan gave them the play Sam Ego’s House; and the Circle became a meeting place for Hollywood’s brighter people, including Katharine Hepburn, George Cukor and Edward G Robinson.
Sydney made his screen debut in 1952 as the young romantic lead, opposite Claire Bloom, in his father’s film Limelight, but effective though he was, he found few subsequent rewarding roles. The best of them were Treneh in Howard Hawks’s Land of the Pharaohs and the leading role in a good British thriller, Ken Hughes’s Confession, both in 1955.
Tall and handsome, he was constantly in and out of love. On Land of the Pharaohs he was romantically involved with the female star, Joan Collins; and later the same year, working on Gregory Ratoff’s Abdulla the Great, he embarked on a much-publicised affair with the film’s star, Kay Kendall.
He had supporting roles in George Marshall’s western Pillars of the Sky (1956) and Jack Sher’s Four Girls in Town (1957), but had greater success on Broadway. His first starring role was opposite Judy Holliday in Bells are Ringing (1956), which ran for 924 performances and earned him a Tony award as best supporting or featured actor in a musical. In George Axelrod’s comedy Goodbye Charlie (1959) his co-star was Lauren Bacall. This was followed by another musical, Subways are for Sleeping (1961), with a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne. Then came a less fortunate play, In the Counting House (1962), which closed after four performances. His best and last Broadway role was in Funny Girl (1964), for which he was again Tony-nominated. His eventual departure from the cast and disillusion with the stage appear to have been the result of deteriorating relations with his Tony-winning co-star Barbra Streisand.
Twice he came to Britain to star in independent low-budget comedies directed by his Circle Theatre collaborator Epstein: Follow That Man (1961) and The Adding Machine (1969), from the Elmer Rice play that had been the Circle’s first notable success. Also in England, he played alongside Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren in his father’s last film, the romantic comedy A Countess from Hong Kong (1967).
Otherwise, between 1966 and 1971 he worked in France and Italy, accepting secondary roles in films now best forgotten. Back in Hollywood he appeared in a horror film, So Evil, My Sister (1974), and thereafter made occasional appearances in TV dramas. His last big-screen appearance was in a horror comedy, Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977), though he continued to make appearances in documentaries about his father until 2003, when he was seen in Richard Schickel’s Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin.
After 40, however, it seemed as if he had determined not to allow work to intrude upon his insatiable zest for social life. He loved good living, rich friends and golf. He could imbibe startling quantities of whisky without any apparent ill effect. If anything it only brightened his gifts as raconteur, with an endless stock of anecdotes, quite liberated from pedantic concern with fact. This endeared him to his stepmother, the former Oona O’Neill (only six months his senior), and the eight children she had given Chaplin; and he remained a favourite guest at their home in Vevey, Switzerland, until Oona’s death in 1991, 14 years after her husband. For some years he ran a stylish restaurant – Chaplin’s – in Palm Springs, which suited his gregarious inclinations, but was probably more popular than profitable: Sydney’s talent for spending money never pleased his financially prudent father, who had too many memories of early penury.
An early marriage to Susan Magnes ended in divorce, and in 1960 he married the French dancer and actress Noëlle Adam, by whom he had one son. In 1985 this marriage also ended in divorce. In 1998, after a 14-year engagement, he married Margaret Beebe, who was with him when he died at his home in Palm Springs.
• Sydney Earl Chaplin, actor, born 30 March 1926; died 3 March 2009
• This correction was added on Monday 16 March 2009. The obituary above named Susan Magnes as the first of Sydney Chaplin’s three wives. In fact he was married only twice; Susan Magness (not Magnes) was the wife of his elder brother, Charles Chaplin Jr.
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
In choosing a professional acting career for himself, bon vivant Sydney Chaplin had to deal with the powerful and pervasive shadow of his famous father, the legendary Charles Chaplin, hovering over him every step of the way. While his older brother, actor Charles Chaplin Jr., buckled under the pressure and died of an alcohol-related illness at age 43, the dashing and debonair Sydney achieved respectable success on his own terms by avoiding films and focusing on the theater.
Sydney was the oldest surviving Chaplin child at the time of his death following a stroke on March 3, 2009. While in no way could he match his father’s ambitious nature and incredible genius, Sydney managed to do things his way. Fortunately, he wasn’t weighed down by his father’s all-encompassing obsession for recognition. Easygoing to a fault, Sydney was both charming and charismatic – a winning combination on the stage. A wonderful mimic, he also possessed a fun and witty idle-rich mentality that tended to reflect his stage and film persona.
Sydney Earle Chaplin, who bore a similar, slightly forlorn facial resemblance to his famous dad, was born in Beverly Hills, California, on March 31, 1926, and was the second son born to Charlie and his second wife, Lita Grey. Lita was an aspiring actress who married the 35-year-old legend when she was 16. Sydney was named after his half-uncle, actor Sydney Chaplin (1885-1965). His parents’ marriage was doomed from the start and indeed was over before Sydney was even a year old. Charlie created just as many headlines off camera as he did on, and this breakup was no exception. The acrimonious divorce proceedings was a feast for the tabloids in 1927. Sydney was thereafter raised by his maternal grandmother and saw almost nothing of his father during his most irregular upbringing.
Growing up, the boy suffered from extreme restlessness and a lack of discipline, and his education was erratic as a result. He was expelled from three boarding schools by the time he was 16. Things changed for him, however, with his country’s participation in World War II. Drafted into the infantry at age 18, a new sense of purpose took over him when he was sent to Europe to serve as a bazooka man in the Third Army commanded by Gen. George S. Patton.
Sydney had avoided his father’s profession up until this point. After his discharge from the army, however, he was asked by a friend to try acting and he found out that he liked it. In 1946 he became the co-founder (with George Englund) of the Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Father Charlie actually directed Sydney in a couple of the company’s endeavors, including a production of “Rain”. Impressed by Sydney’s new-found seriousness, Charlie gave him his first movie role as the composer in the classic Limelight (1952). Despite a fine introduction into films, Sydney’s later output would be largely overlooked.
Despite his inbred elegance, he was not the leading man type on film and was often cast in ethnic support roles (Indian, Egyptian). His credits included such foreign films as Act of Love (1953) [aka “Act of Love”] starring Kirk Douglas; Columbus Discovers Kraehwinkel(1954) [aka “Columbus Discovers Kraehwinkel”], which co-starred brother Charlie Jr., the British entry Land of the Pharaohs (1955), which starred one-time paramour Joan Collins, the English/Egyptian co-production Abdullah’s Harem (1955) starring Kay Kendall, and another British programmer, Follow That Man (1961) with Dawn Addams. He did not have any better luck with the American films he made–Pillars of the Sky (1956)–a actionful western in which he played an Indian scout working for the army–Four Girls in Town(1957) and Quantez (1957). Sydney did star in one above-average picture, the British thriller The Deadliest Sin (1955) co-starring Audrey Dalton, but the second-string film came and went without much fanfare.
Stardom finally occurred for the actor on the New York stage — not in a chic comedy, for which he was known, but in a musical. He opened on Broadway in November of 1956 in the hit Betty Comden and Adolph Green effort “Bells Are Ringing” after femme star Judy Holliday encouraged him to audition. Having never sung before, it took 15 rounds before the director gave him the part of Jeff Moss, the gent who falls for Holliday’s switchboard operator. Both Sydney and Judy wound up winning Tony trophies in 1957 for their performances (Sydney in the “featured” category) and he also earned a 1957 Theatre World Award as a new “promising personality”. He and Holliday became involved at one point, which did not work out, and the uncomfortable situation led to his agreed replacement (by Hal Linden). Sydney would not return to perform with Holliday when the show made its London debut. Nevertheless, he continued on Broadway in both musicals and comedies, including “Goodbye, Charlie” (1959), “Subways Are for Sleeping” (1961) and “In the Counting House” (1962). His modest baritone was utilized on TV as well in the musical version of Wonderful Town (1958) starring Rosalind Russell.
Sydney’s second greatest triumph came again in a Broadway musical — 1964’s “Funny Girl” co-starring meteoric newcomer Barbra Streisand. Playing the inveterate gambler and ladies’ man Nick Arnstein opposite Streisand’s love-torn comedienne Fanny Brice, both actors received Tony nominations for their performances, but neither won. His problems working with the young and eccentric Streisand resulted in a feud that led to his eventually leaving the cast. Due to the problems with his leading ladies, both of his original roles in “Bells Are Ringing” and “Funny Girl” went to other more famous stars (Dean Martin and Omar Sharif, respectively) when they transferred to film.
In the late 1960s Sydney appeared in another of his father’s pictures, supporting Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren in the poorly-received A Countess from Hong Kong (1967). Sadly, this was Charlie’s last hurrah as a director. Sydney later worked in foreign-made film fare, most of them unworthy of his talents. He ended his career in the late 1970s on an uneventful note with some standard TV guest appearances and roles in a couple of abysmal horror films: So Evil, My Sister (1974) and Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977), the latter movie featuring other veteran actors on the wane, including John Ireland, John Carradine and Yvonne De Carlo.
In later years Sydney opened a celebrity-friendly bistro and dinner club called Chaplin’s in Palm Springs, California. It ran for about a decade. He also enjoyed trophy-winning celebrity status out on the desert’s golf courses. Sydney was survived by his third wife, Margaret Beebe, and his only child Stephan from his first marriage.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
James Griffith was a tall, lanky, dark-haired American actor who appeared in many Westerns both on film and in television. He was born in 1916 in Los Angeles and after military service in World War Two he resumed his actor career. His first movie was in “Every Girl Should Get Married” in 1948. His other films include “Drums in the Deep South”” in 1951, “Red Skies of Montana” with Richard Widmark and Constance Smith, “Apache Ambush” and in 1962, “How the West Was Won”. He died in 1993.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Ideal for playing swarthy villains, James Griffith’s tall, dark and gaunt features and shady countenance invaded hundreds of film and TV dramas (and a few comedies) throughout his career on-camera. Highlighted by his arched brows, hooded eyes and prominent proboscis, heavy character work would be his largest source of income for nearly four decades.
He was born James J. Griffith, of Welsh ancestry, on February 13, 1916, in Los Angeles. He and sister Dorothy were raised in the Santa Monica area. An early interest in music led to his learning to play several instruments, including the clarinet and saxophone. He got his first taste of entertaining audiences by performing in local bands while arranging music for them as well. An interest in acting came about participating in school plays and continued when he found parts to play in small theatre houses in such productions as “They Can’t Get You Down” in 1939.
Unable to consistently pay the bills, however, Griffith found steadier work at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica. Enlisting in the Marine Corps. in 1941, he served his country until 1947. Eventually married with a newborn, a chance meeting with bandleader Spike Jones while working as a gas station attendant led to a six month traveling gig with Jones’ City Slicker Band playing tenor saxophone.
Griffith finally broke into “B” films with a smarmy but showy role as an insurance agent in the murder drama Blonde Ice (1948). He continued to sniff out work in both drama and occasional comedy usually as unsympathetic or shady characters, sometimes billed and sometimes not. Some of his bigger, noteworthy parts in the early years came with the pictures Alaska Patrol (1949), Indian Territory (1950) and Double Deal (1950). He also took on some famous and infamous figures of history as in Fighting Man of the Plains(1949) (as William Quantrill), Day of Triumph (1954) (as Judas Iscariot), Jesse James vs. the Daltons (1954) (as outlaw Bob Dalton), The Law vs. Billy the Kid (1954) (as Pat Garrett), and Masterson of Kansas (1954) as Doc Holliday. He provided the voice of Abraham Lincoln in the Rod Cameron western Stage to Tucson (1950).
TV took much of the mustachioed actor’s time from the 1950s on, notably in westerns such as “The Lone Ranger,” “Annie Oakley,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Big Valley,” “Bonanza,” “Death Valley Days,” “The Gene Autry Show,” “Wagon Train,” “Rawhide,” “Maverick,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “B.J. and the Bear” and “Dallas.” Elsewhere on the small screen he played cold-hearted villains twice on “Batman” in support of the nefarious Ma Parker and Catwoman. Not to be pegged in just oaters, he also appeared in less dusty TV fare such as “The Streets of San Francisco,” “Fantasy Island” and Emergency!” Griffith made his final acting appearance on a 1984 “Trapper John” episode.
A gifted raconteur, his later years were spent writing theatre plays and movie scripts, and attending film festivals. Two of his earlier movie scripts that found releases wereLorna (1964) (in which he also appeared), Shalako (1968) and Catlow (1971). Griffith died of cancer on September 17, 1993, at age 77.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Gigi Perreau was born in 1941 in Los Angeles. She made many films as a child actress during the 1940’s. Her movies included “Mr Skeffington” in 1944 with Bette Davis and “Green Dolphin Street” in 1947 with Lana Turner and Donna Reed.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
A major little talent, this French-American moppet star of the late ’40s and early ’50s was not able to parlay her precocious popularity into a sizeable adult career, but has nevertheless maintained on the fringe for decades. Gigi Perreau was born in Los Angeles to a French father, who fled his native country at the onset of WWII, and an American mother. Her beginnings started way back to the tender age of two and a half when her mother was approached by a talent agent who represented child actors and who took an initial interest in her 5-year-old brother Gerald. But Gigi grabbed a little attention of her own. When producer/director Mervyn LeRoy discovered little Gigi could speak French as well as English at such a precious age, he cast her as Greer Garson‘s daughter inMadame Curie (1943). MGM signed her up and she spent several years there before Universal-International picked up her option. She bloomed as a top juvenile player and received an award from the Screen Children’s Guild while appeared in top quality films, both light-hearted and tear-stained, including My Foolish Heart (1949) starring Susan Hayward, and Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952) with Rock Hudson. From the mid ’50s, however, and after scores of roles on TV shows, things started looking bleak for the former pig-tailed child star as she tried to adjust through the awkward teen age years. Appearances in such innocuous time fillers as The Cool and the Crazy (1958), Girls Town(1959) and Hell on Wheels (1967) pretty much tells the story. At the age of 20, she married and had two children, a son and daughter. A second marriage produced another boy and girl. Rarely seen on film or TV since the late ’60s, Gigi has continued on as a stage director and college prep drama teacher. Brother Gerald (aka Peter Miles) equipped himself quite well as a child actor performing in The Red Pony (1949), The Good Humor Man (1950) and Quo Vadis (1951). Gigi appeared with him in the movies Enchantment(1948) and Roseanna McCoy (1949), and played his sister on The Betty Hutton Show(1959). Gigi’s two younger sisters, Janine Perreau and Lauren Perreau, also dabbled in film and TV as youngsters, but to a much lesser degree.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Gene Reynolds was born in 1923 in Cleveland, Ohio. He began his screen career as part of the “Our Gang” series in 1934. His other films include “In Old Chicago” with Tyrone Power in 1937, “Boy’s Town” with Spencer Tracy and “The Country Girl” in 1954 with Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby. He later became a very successful television director.
IMDB entry:
Gene Reynolds was born on April 4, 1923 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA as Eugene Reynolds Blumenthal. He is a producer and director, known for M*A*S*H (1972), Lou Grant (1977) and My Three Sons (1960). He has been married to Ann Sweeny since 1979. They have one child. He was previously married to Bonnie Jones.He quit acting to become a producer-director. (1993-1997) President of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). As a boy, was an actor in the movie Adventure in Washington (1941) along with friend, actor Tommy Bond who also was “Butch” the bully in the original “Little Rascals”. Has been nominated for 24 Emmy Awards and won six, including Outstanding Comedy Series for M*A*S*H (1972) and Outstanding Drama Series twice for Lou Grant (1977), which also earned him a Humanitas Prize. He won the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Direction of a Comedy Series twice for his work on “M*A*S*H” and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Direction of a Drama Series once for his work on “Lou Grant”. Is best known for directing, producing and/or writing two hugely successful TV shows:Lou Grant (1977) and M*A*S*H (1972). Produced and directed numerous episodes of other TV hits, including My Three Sons (1960), Hogan’s Heroes (1965) and Room 222(1969).
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Wayne Rogers is a likable American actor who has graced cinema and television. He is best known for his participation in the “Mash” television series as Trapper John McIntyre. His films include “The Glory Guys” with Tom Tryon and Senta Berger in 1965 and “Cool Hand Luke” with Paul Newman in 1967. He died in 31st December 2015.
“Telegraph” obituary:
Wayne Rogers, who has died aged 82, played the US Army surgeon Captain “Trapper” John McIntyre, the martini-swilling, nurse-chasing sidekick to Alan Alda’s “Hawkeye” Pierce, in the immensely popular television series M.A.S.H., a black comedy set in a mobile hospital during the Korean War.
Rogers took over the role of Trapper John for the television adaptation (first broadcast in 1972) from Elliott Gould who had played him in Robert Altman’s hit film of 1970, which was itself based on a novel by Richard Hooker, a former US Army physician. For the television show, which was generally lighter in tone than the film, Trapper’s sense of humour was made broader, more slapstick and less dry.
He tended to take on a secondary role as partner in practical jokes – usually involving the goading of the more officious members of the unit such as Major Burns – to Alan Alda’s character. But the wisecracking Trapper, so-called because a young woman with whom he was once caught in flagrante in a train’s lavatory protested that “he trapped me!”, was well liked by viewers.
A typical quip came in an episode when Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, the strict head nurse played by Loretta Swit, is heard angrily deriding Trapper and Hawkeye as “those shower-tent peekers”, and Trapper rejoins with: “You peek into one shower and you’re labelled for life!”
By the third series, Alda’s dominance in the scripts was irritating Rogers and this, as well as contractual disagreements (including a morality clause which, Rogers later claimed, “said that, in the eyes of the studio, if you behaved in an immoral fashion, they have the right to suspend you”) led to his departure from the show in 1975. Trapper was hastily written out of the script and replaced as Hawkeye’s tent chum by Captain B J Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), who stayed for the remaining eight seasons.
William Wayne McMillan Rogers was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on April 7 1933, the son of a lawyer who died when Wayne was still a child. After private school he read History at Princeton and then served in the US Navy as a navigator on a cargo ship before catching the acting bug. “At the time, I was supposed to go to Harvard Law,” he recalled many years later. “My mother was insistent that I conform. I had to break the news that I wanted a life in the theatre instead. It went over like a lead balloon.”
He moved to New York where he studied dance with Martha Graham and acting. He appeared in episodes of Gunsmoke, Law of the Plainsman and Wanted: Dead or Alive and in 1960 was cast in a lead role in a new Western series, Stagecoach West. In 1967 he took a small role in the prison drama Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman.
Of the M.A.S.H. years he said: “It was a wonderful experience, and I’ll tell you why. Alan Alda and I came to it with the same attitude – that the work, and not the trappings of the work, was the most important thing.”
After M.A.S.H. he turned up occasionally in films; on television among other roles he appeared as a guest star in five episodes of Murder, She Wrote and, starting in 1979, played a doctor again in the sitcom House Calls, with Lynn Redgrave and then Sharon Gless.
Meanwhile Rogers’s business career was prospering; he became a respected entrepreneur and appeared on Cashin’ In on Fox News as a pundit.
From his early days in a precarious profession Rogers had salted away his earnings. “One of the first things I did in the early 1960s,” he remembered, “was to buy an apartment house in West Hollywood out of bankruptcy and turn it around.” In the early days he was able to help his flatmate, the actor Peter Falk, to recover money from an insurance company after he had been badly advised.
Wayne Rogers married, first, Mitzi McWhorter, an actress, in 1960. The marriage was dissolved and in 1988 he married Amy Hirsh, a producer. She survives him with a son and a daughter from the previous marriage.
The above “Telegraph” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Tough around the edges and with a handsome durability, Alabama-born Wayne Rogers had graduated from Princeton with a history degree in 1954 and joined the Navy before giving acting a thought. During his military service, however, he became associated with theater by happenstance and decided to give it a try after his discharge. He started things off by studying with renown actor Sanford Meisner and dancer Martha Graham at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He toiled for years in off-Broadway and regional plays (“Bus Stop”, “No Time for Sergeants”) and had a short stint on the daytime soap The Edge of Night (1956) before making a minor dent in films, including small roles in Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), The Glory Guys (1965) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). He also co-starred opposite Robert Bray in the short-lived TV western series Stagecoach West (1960), and co-produced and wrote the script for the cult sci-fi cheapie The Astro-Zombies (1968) in-between. It wasn’t until 1972 when the 39-year-old Rogers nabbed the role of “Trapper John”, a Korean War surgeon, in the classic comedy series M*A*S*H (1972) that he found the stardom that had eluded him for over a decade and a half. Alongside Alan Alda‘s “Hawkeye Pierce”, the TV show was a huge hit and the two enjoyed equal success at the beginning. Slowly, however, Wayne’s character started getting the short end of the stick as the wry, sardonic, highly appealing Alda became a resounding audience favorite. Frustrated at turning second-banana to Alda, he quit the series (his character was discharged) after three seasons amid a contractual dispute. Mike Farrell replaced him in the cohort role of “B.J. Hunnicut”. TV movies came his way throughout the late 70s and a couple more comedy series, including House Calls (1979), in which Wayne received a Golden Globe nomination, but nothing would equal the success he found during theM*A*S*H (1972) years. Sporadic filming in Once in Paris… (1978), The Hot Touch (1981),The Gig (1985) and The Killing Time (1987) also failed to raise his amiable profile. In later years, Wayne found renewed respect as a businessman and investor, having managed the affairs of such stars as Peter Falk and James Caan, among others.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Although Stephanie Beecham has starred in movies, notably opposite Marlon Brando in “The Nightcomers” and Ava Gardner in “Tam Lin”, she is best known for her roles in some iconic television series. She was born in Barnet in 1947. She began her acting career with roles on television in “The Saint” with Roger Moore and “Jason King”. Her major roles on TV were as Rose in the series “Tenko”, in “Connie” in 1985, in Hollywood in “The Colbys” and then back in the UK in “Bad Girls” with Amanda Barrie. She has two daughters from her marriage to John McEnery.
TCM overview:
A British stage actress who migrated to the USA to play the bitchy Sable Coolly on “Dynasty II: The Cloys” (ABC, 1985-87), Stephanie Beacham has often been cast in roles that vary between nasty vixens and cool, take-charge women. The London native began her career on stage in Liverpool in 1964 where she was a founding member of the Everyman Theatre. She debuted there in “The Servant of Two Masters” and as the First Witch in “Macbeth”. By 1970, Beacham was working on the London stage in “The Basement” and later appeared opposite Ian McKellen in “Venice Preserved” (1985) and Jeremy Irons in “The Rover” (1988). She belatedly made her Broadway debut in 1996 in a production of Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband”.
Beacham debuted in films in 1969’s “The Games” as an Olympic hopeful opposite Michael Crawford. She subsequently appeared as a swinger alongside Ava Gardner in Roddy McDowell’s “The Devil’s Widow” (1971). More recently, she was a nemesis to Shelly Long in the pallid comedy “Troop Beverly Hills” (1989). Beacham has feared better on the small screen, She reprised her role as the bitch-goddess Sable on “Dynasty” for the 1988-89 season. She switched to comedy in the title role of “Sister Kate” (NBC, 1989-90), a nun more familiar with work in the high echelons of power now assigned to run an orphanage. Beacham had the recurring role of Luke Perry’s mother on Fox’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” and later played the very able Dr. Westphalen for two seasons (1993-95) on NBC’s “seaQuest DSV”.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
John McEnery & Stephanie Beecham
Stephanie Beecham TCM Overview
Setephanie Beacham has starred in movies, notably opposite Marlon Brando in “The Nightcomers” and Ava Gardner in “Tam Lin”, she is best known for her roles in some iconic television series. She was born in Barnet in 1947.
She began her acting career with roles on television in “The Saint” with Roger Moore and “Jason King”. Her major roles on TV were as Rose in the series “Tenko”, in “Connie” in 1985, in Hollywood in “The Colbys” and then back in the UK in “Bad Girls” with Amanda Barrie. She has two daughters from her marriage to John McEnery.
TCM overview:
A British stage actress who migrated to the USA to play the bitchy Sable Coolly on “Dynasty II: The Cloys” (ABC, 1985-87), Stephanie Beacham has often been cast in roles that vary between nasty vixens and cool, take-charge women. The London native began her career on stage in Liverpool in 1964 where she was a founding member of the Everyman Theatre. She debuted there in “The Servant of Two Masters” and as the First Witch in “Macbeth”.
By 1970, Beacham was working on the London stage in “The Basement” and later appeared opposite Ian McKellen in “Venice Preserved” (1985) and Jeremy Irons in “The Rover” (1988). She belatedly made her Broadway debut in 1996 in a production of Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband”.
Stephanie Beecham & Louise Jameson
Beacham debuted in films in 1969’s “The Games” as an Olympic hopeful opposite Michael Crawford. She subsequently appeared as a swinger alongside Ava Gardner in Roddy McDowell’s “The Devil’s Widow” (1971). More recently, she was a nemesis to Shelly Long in the pallid comedy “Troop Beverly Hills” (1989).
Beacham has feared better on the small screen, She reprised her role as the bitch-goddess Sable on “Dynasty” for the 1988-89 season. She switched to comedy in the title role of “Sister Kate” (NBC, 1989-90), a nun more familiar with work in the high echelons of power now assigned to run an orphanage.
Beacham had the recurring role of Luke Perry’s mother on Fox’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” and later played the very able Dr. Westphalen for two seasons (1993-95) on NBC’s “seaQuest DSV”. The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Shirley Jones was born in 1934 in Pennsylvania. She achieved fame early in life because of her winning the leads in two of the major cinema musicals of the mid-1950’s, “Oklaholma” in 1955 and “Carousel” in 1956. She won an Oscar for a dramatic role in 1960 in “Elmer Gantry” and then had another major success in a singing role in 1962 in “The Music Man”. In 1970 she won international acclaim again for her role in “The Partridge Family” with her stepson David Cassidy. She is still busy performing on stage, films and television.
TCM Overview:
A sunny personality and a gorgeous singing voice brought actress Shirley Jones to the Broadway stage, which in turn led to her career in Hollywood. She was a natural for big-screen musicals, but defied critics’ expectations for her surprising turn as a prostitute in “Elmer Gantry” (1960), which earned her an Oscar. Her film work cooled in the 1960s, but she gained a following among younger viewers in the early 1970s as one of television’s coolest moms on “The Partridge Family” (ABC, 1970-1974), which also starred her stepson, pop idol David Cassidy. The show’s success ensured her status as a pop culture icon and helped her to maintain steady work in television and on stage for the next three decades.
Born Shirley Mae Jones in Charleroi, PA, she was named after child actress Shirley Temple by her parents, Paul Jones and Marjorie Williams, who owned the Jones Brewery. An only child, her early years were marked by happiness and a burgeoning talent for singing, which earned her a spot in her local church choir at the age of six. Shortly after graduating from high school, she was encouraged by talent agents to enter the Miss Pittsburgh beauty competition, which she won in 1952. She was later named first runner-up in the Miss Pennsylvania Pageant, which earned her a scholarship to the acclaimed Pittsburgh Playhouse. She soon lit out for New York City to make a name for herself on the musical stage, and so impressed the legendary Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II that they cast her in the chorus of their 1953 production of “South Pacific.” A small role in 1954’s “Me and Juliet” led to her assuming the female lead in the touring production. While on the road, Rogers and Hammerstein arranged for Jones to audition for the upcoming film version of their smash hit “Oklahoma!” Upon her return from Hollywood, she discovered that she had landed the lead role of Laurey, and her film career was on its way.
Jones was soon top-billed in some of the most popular and successful musicals of the 1950s, including “Carousel” (1956), “April Love” (1957) and “Never Steal Anything Small” (1959). The blonde beauty exceeded at playing musical characters with a degree of depth and grit, like the lovelorn Julie in “Carousel” or the married woman who catches James Cagney’s eye in “Never Steal Anything Small.” Television also offered her more dramatic opportunities. After her performance in “The Big Slide,” a 1956 crime drama produced as part of “Playhouse 90” (CBS, 1956-1961), Burt Lancaster convinced director Richard Brooks to cast her as a former preacher’s daughter-turned-prostitute in the hard-hitting drama “Elmer Gantry.” The power of Jones’ performance took audiences and critics alike by surprise, and she was showered with praise and awards, including the 1961 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Despite her overwhelming success, Jones struggled to find parts of equal substance in her subsequent features. John Ford’s “Two Rode Together” (1961), with Jones as the sister of a man kidnapped by Comanches, gave her a fine showcase for her dramatic skills, but more often than not, she was cast as the object of romance in light comedies like “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” (1963) or “Bedtime Story” (1964) with Marlon Brando and David Niven. Her biggest success on film during this period was another musical, albeit one of the best – the 1962 film version of “The Music Man,” with Jones as a prim librarian who disapproves of Robert Preston’s flim-flam man. One of Columbia Pictures’ most well-loved and popular hits, it cemented audiences’ perception of Jones as a beloved musical star, as did numerous national stage performances and nightclub performances. Her frequent co-star during this period was troubled actor and singer Jack Cassidy, whom she married in 1956. Their marriage produced three sons – future teen idol and television producer Shaun Cassidy, actor Patrick Cassidy, and baby brother Ryan.
Jones found more compelling work in film and television during the late 1960s; she was nominated for an Emmy as a lonely married woman who finds love with a stranger (Lloyd Bridges) in her TV movie debut, “Silent Night, Lonely Night” (1969), and gave a comic spin on her “Elmer Gantry” role as the salty proprietress of “The Cheyenne Social Club” (1970), a bordello inherited by aging cowpokes Henry Fonda and James Stewart. Both were overshadowed by her first television series, “The Partridge Family,” which debuted in 1970. Based on the real-life family pop group the Cowsills, the series cast Jones as a widowed mother who finds herself on the top of the music charts, thanks to her children’s band. Jones’ real-life stepson David Cassidy also starred as the group’s lead singer and central eye candy, with future headline grabber Danny Bonaduce as the comic relief bassist. A substantial ratings hit, the fictitious group also found themselves on the real Billboard charts with their debut single, “I Think I Love You,” which featured Jones on backing vocals. She soon found herself at the center of a teen music and television phenomenon, which generated nearly a dozen album releases, countless promotional appearances and even a spin-off cartoon.
The success of “The Partridge Family” came to an end in 1974 when Cassidy grew weary of the show and the fan adulation; seeking instead to establish himself as a serious musician outside of its confines. The series aired its final episode in 1974 – the same year that Jones painfully divorced her alcoholic husband, Jack Cassidy. Though more popular during its network run than its chief competitor for young audiences, “The Brady Bunch” (ABC, 1969-1974), it did not score as highly in syndication, and remained a cult favorite until the Nick At Night network revived it in the mid-1990s. Jones and the original cast were reunited for several high profile promotional appearances, and two TV movies based on the series were aired in 1999 – “Come On Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story” and “The David Cassidy Story,” which attempted to explore the series’ popularity and its effect on the major players.
After “The Partridge Family,” Jones remained very active on stage and television during the 1970s and 1980s; among her better TV features during this period was “Winner Take All” (1975), which cast her as a gambling addict; the terrorism drama “Evening in Byzantium” (1979); and “The Children of An Lac” (1980), which cast her as real life Red Cross nurse Betty Tisdale, who helped rescue Vietnamese orphans before the fall of Saigon in 1975. There were also attempts to return to a series – “Shirley” (NBC, 1979-1980) – which starred Jones as a recent widower raising her children in a small California town, while “The Adventures of Pollyanna” (1982) was an unsold pilot based on the classic children’s story that originally aired as party of “Disneyland” (ABC/CBS/NBC, 1954-1990). In 1977, Jones married manic TV comedian Marty Ingells, who chronicled their unusual courtship in the 1989 book Shirley and Marty – An Unlikely Love Story. Ingells’ eccentricities put him at odds with her grown children, and Jones herself twice filed for divorce before retracting the petitions. It seemed after the heartache of being married to the womanizing drinker that was her first husband, Jones was determined to take a different path – that of being with someone who made her laugh, no matter how odd the rest of the world saw the comic.
Jones’ acting career thrived well into the 1980s, 1990s and into the new millennium, with frequent guest appearances on television series and roles in TV features and stage productions. She never strayed very far from musicals – a 2004 Broadway production of “42nd Street” saw her appearing opposite her son Patrick – but she also began to show an aptitude for broad comedy, most notably in a recurring stint on “The Drew Carey Show” (ABC, 1995-2004) as an older woman who becomes Drew’s romantic interest, as well as in the comedy “Grandma’s Boy” (2006) as a sexually aggressive senior citizen.
Audiences were reminded of Jones’ dramatic talents with the 2006 TV movie “Hidden Places,” which cast her as the Bible-quoting aunt of a young Depression-era widow left to care for her family’s farm. Jones received considerable praise for her performance, netting an Emmy nomination as well as a nod from the Screen Actors Guild. That same year, she returned to series work with the short-lived daytime serial “Monarch Cove” (Lifetime, 2006), a soapy drama based on a German telenovela. Two years later, she joined the cast of the long-running soap “Days of Our Lives” (NBC, 1965- ) for a six-episode stint as Colleen Brady, a mysterious member of the perennially troubled Brady clan. Meanwhile, she received critical kudos for her turn as the alcoholic mother of an angry and stressed talent manager (Noah Bean) being counseled by a recovering drug addict (Benjamin Bratt) on the short-lived drama, “The Cleaner” (A&E, 2008-09). Jones’ turn put her in contention for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Irene Tedrow was born in 1907 in Denver, Colorado. She had a profilic career on stage, screen and television. Among her films are “Slander” in 1956, “Loving You” with Elvis Presley and Dolores Hart,, “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” with Doris Day in 1960 and “”The Cincinnati Kid” with Steve McQueen in 1965. She died in 1995.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Denver-born supporting actress Irene Tedrow is another in a long line of “I know the face…but not the name” character actors whose six-decade career was known more for its durability than for the greatness of roles she played. Born in 1907, she was a lady primarily of the stage, beginning her acting career as a teen. She trained in drama at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, PA, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1929. A slim, handsome woman in her early days, her features grew more severe with age, which ultimately typed her as puritanical meddlers and no-nonsense matrons practically from her entrance into film in 1937. She seldom, if ever, found a meaty part, appearing way, way down the list of credits, if at all. A founding member of the Old Globe Theatre, she was featured in such classical productions as “Richard III,” “Hamlet” and “Henry IV, Part I.” She became a primary player on radio during the war years, notably for the maternal role of Mrs. Janet Archer in the popular serial Meet Corliss Archer (1951), which she transferred to TV for one season. Her radio role lasted for nine years (43-52). Irene appeared in hundreds of episodic guest appearances for nearly 35 years in everythingDragnet (1951), The Andy Griffith Show (1960), and Twilight Zone (1959) to the more recent The Facts of Life (1979), St. Elsewhere (1982) and L.A. Law (1986). Never a regular series player, she is probably best remembered as the kindly Mrs. Elkins who appeared occasionally on the Dennis the Menace (1959) sitcom. Over the years, Irene never abandoned the stage, gracing a number of shows in her senior years including “Our Town” on Broadway, plus “Foxfire,” “The Hot L. Baltimore” and “Pygmalion.” Continuing to work as an octogenarian, she died of a stroke at age 87 in the Los Angeles area.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
