COOKING WITH THE STARS: ELIZABETH TAYLOR

I am not a huge fan of the legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor, but I was intrigued by her recipe for chicken with avocado and mushrooms...

INGREDIENTS:
1 avocado, peeled and cubed
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 (2 1/2 pound) chickens, cut into serving pieces
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup butter
3 finely chopped shallots
3 tablespoons cognac
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 cup whipping cream
2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup chicken stock
Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish

Sprinkle avocado with lemon juice. Cover and refrigerate. Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a large heavy skillet, over low heat, heat 3 to 4 tablespoons butter and sauté chicken until juices run yellow when it is pricked with a fork, about 35 to 40 minutes. Use two skillets if necessary, adding more butter as needed. Transfer cooked chicken to a serving dish. Cover loosely with aluminum foil. Keep warm in a 300 degree F oven for 15 minutes, while preparing a sauce.

To make the sauce, add shallots to skillet. Cook over medium heat, stirring and scraping sides and bottom of a pan with wooden spoon. Add cognac and wine and bring to a boil. Boil until mixture has almost evaporated. Add cream and boil 5 minutes longer. Add chicken stock to cream mixture. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thick. While sauce cooks, sauté mushrooms over high heat in butter. Add the mushrooms, remaining cognac, and avocado cubes. Stir until well blended. Pour over chicken. Sprinkle with parsley.

MUSIC BREAK: BING CROSBY - THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME

GUEST REVIEW: ONCE A THIEF

Bruce Kogan is back to review another film. I have to admit I have never of 1951's Once A Thief but after reading this review I want to see it now!

Cesar Romero and June Havoc star in this shoestring B film about a woman who falls for the wrong guy and both pay for it in the end.

June Havoc plays a waitress in a Los Angeles beanery who's been around the block a few times and sets in motion a train of events when she feels sorry for Marie McDonald when she can't pay her bill and gets her a job at her place of work.

McDonald barely escaped from a heist she was in on up north and she's wanted. Romero is a flashy small time crook who runs a bookmaking parlor with Lon Chaney, Jr. in back of Chaney's tailor shop.

All three, Romero, Havoc, and Chaney are in parts that they would have gotten more critical acclaim for had they been at a major studio for this film. Romero who was usually second leads and/or romantic rival of the leading man really shows some acting chops in this part. Chaney also showed he was capable of more than the horror films Universal Pictures put him in.

As for Havoc she spent most of her career on the stage, but her film appearances were in mostly B films. She's the hardboiled dame in love with the wrong guy and great at the part.

Fans of all three of these people, this dental floss budget film should not be missed by any of you...

BRUCE'S RATING: 5 OUT OF 10
MY RATING: HAVE NOT SEEN YET!

DICK HAYMES AT 100

There was a time when the name Dick Haymes meant more to the record buying audience than Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby. However, September 13th marks what would have been Haymes 100th birthday. Many people will not remember this crooner with one of the best voices in the business. Dick Haymes was most popular in the 1940s but early on he worked with several bandleaders before beginning a solo career that took him to Hollywood stardom. His brother, Bob, was a successful songwriter. (Bob Haymes wrote the standard "That's All").

In 1937, the family briefly settled in California, where Dick’s mother hobnobbed with movie stars, before returning to New York. Both brothers set their sights on singing. Many auditions later, Haymes landed a spot with Bunny Berigan’s orchestra in 1939 but left after only a few dates. Berigan’s band was in serious decline at that point, and Haymes had other ambitions.

Haymes found sporadic work singing on the radio and decided to try his hand as a songwriter. After pitching his work to bandleader Harry James, he ended up being hired as a vocalist. His deep baritone voice quickly won over both the critics and the public. He remained with James until the end of 1941 when, expecting his first child, he left for greener pastures.

In January 1942, Haymes signed with CBS for his own three times weekly radio series, and in May, he organized his own band in which he was to play piano as well as sing. The endeavor quickly fell victim to the draft, and he joined Benny Goodman as vocalist. He left Goodman at the end of 1942, finding a new home with Tommy Dorsey.

Haymes stayed with Dorsey for only a few months, going solo in May 1943. He signed a recording contract with Decca and in August signed a film contract with Twentieth Century Fox, beginning what would be a very successful screen career. He starred in many of the top Fox musicals of the era, including Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe and State Fair. He hosted his own new CBS radio program from 1944 to 1948, teamed up with singer Helen Forrest in the first two years. The pair often recorded together. Haymes also appeared on various other radio programs in the 1940s and 1950s.

Near the end of the war, Haymes faced the prospect of being drafted, and he registered as a resident alien, waiving his right to citizenship in order to avoid being called to duty. He claimed he only did so due to a family crisis which needed his attention. He later volunteered for the service but was refused on medical grounds, so he became one of the USO’s most ardent volunteers instead.

In 1947, when his Fox contract ran out, Haymes signed with Universal for two pictures. His records still sold well but a troubled home life began to take its toll. Problems with drinking and his handling of money caused his career to suffer. During the early 1950s, he appeared in several B movies and starred in an action/adventure radio series on ABC. His contract with Decca ended in 1952.

He made a few outstand recordings for Capitol in the late 1950s before moving to Ireland in 1961, where he spent the decade cleaning up his life. When he did manage to make records, they are all wonderful and shows a crooner in great voice. He began to make a comeback in the 1970s and returned to the U.S. in 1972, but his chance at good fortune was short-​lived. Dick Haymes died in 1980 after losing a fight with lung cancer. Dick Haymes deserves to be remembered especially now on his century birthday...

RIP: BURT REYNOLDS

Burt Reynolds, the mustachioed megastar who first strutted on screen more than half a century ago, died Thursday, according to his agent Todd Eisner. He was 82.

The Georgia native, whose easy-going charms and handsome looks drew prominent roles in films such as "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Boogie Nights, suffered a cardiac arrest, Eisner said.

An iconic Hollywood sex symbol in front of the camera, Reynolds also tried his directorial hand behind it, and later earned a reputation for philanthropy after founding the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film & Theatre in his home state of Florida.

His roles over the years ranged and pivoted from Southern heartthrob to tough guy to comedy, notably for his role as Rep. David Dilbeck in the 1996 film Striptease which flopped at the box office but earned him widespread praise for his comedic prowess. But it was John Boorman's 1972 thriller Deliverance which cast Reynolds as outdoorsman Lewis Medlock, that is widely credited for launching his early career. Reynolds called it "by far" his best film.

"I thought maybe this film is more important in a lot of ways than we've given it credit for," he said in an interview years later. The movie's infamous rape scene may have helped the public -- especially men -- better understand the horrors of sexual attacks, Reynolds said.

"It was the only time I saw men get up, sick, and walk out of a theater," he added. "I've seen women do that (before)," but not men.

Born in South Georgia, Reynolds and his family moved to Michigan and eventually wound up in southeastern Florida, according to the website of the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 1993. At Palm Beach High School, he first made a name for himself as a football star and earned an athletic scholarship to Florida State University. But when injuries derailed a promising athletic career, Reynolds turned to acting.

He then scored small parts in the late 1950s before landing a role in the New York City Center revival of "Mister Roberts" in 1957, as well as a recurring spot in the TV series "Gunsmoke."By 1974, Reynolds had hit it big and starred as an ex-football player who landed in prison in the film The Longest Yard.  Reynolds' notoriety soared through the late 1970s and 1980s, during which time he spearheaded the Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run movie franchises. He also earned People's Choice Awards in 1979, 1982 and 1983 as all-around male entertainer of the year.

But he also turned down some of the biggest roles in Hollywood history. From James Bond to Hans Solo in George Lucas' 1977 blockbuster "Star Wars," Reynolds also reportedly was among Paramount Pictures' top choices to play Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 epic "The Godfather."

His love life also drew headlines after a high-profile divorce to actress Loni Anderson preceded Reynolds bankruptcy filing in 1996, amid a budding romance with actor Sally Field. Before Field, he was linked to singer Dinah Shore, who was nineteen years older that Burt. Like many of the movie roles he chose, he made bad decisions in love as well.

In 1998, Reynolds scored his sole Oscar nomination for best supporting actor after his portrayal of a porn film producer in the film Boogie Nights despite his dislike of the film and its apparent glorification of the porn industry. Years later, with a mustache gone gray, he suffered from health issues that included open heart surgery. Reynolds also checked into a drug rehab clinic in 2009. The purpose was "to regain control of his life" after becoming addicted to painkillers prescribed following back surgery, his manager said.

Once among Hollywood's highest-paid actors, Reynolds later fell into financial trouble amid private ventures in an Atlanta restaurant and a professional sports team, though he continued to make cameo appearances and teach acting classes...

RIP: GLORIA JEAN

Child actress Gloria Jean passed away on September 1, 2018.She was an American actress and singer who starred or co-starred in 26 feature films between 1939 and 1959, as well as making numerous radio, television, stage, and nightclub appearances.

After moving to Scranton, Pennsylvania, Gloria Jean sang on radio with Paul Whiteman's band. When she was 12, "she was engaged by a smallish New York opera company and became the youngest member of an opera troupe in the United States." Gloria Jean was being trained as a coloratura soprano, when her voice teacher, Leah Russel, took her to an audition held by Universal Pictures movie producer Joe Pasternak in 1938. Pasternak had guided Deanna Durbin to stardom, and with Durbin now advancing to ingénue roles, Pasternak wanted a younger singer to make the same kind of musicals. Up against hundreds of others, Gloria Jean won the audition.

Under contract to Universal, she was given the leading role in the feature The Under-Pup (1939) and became instantly popular with moviegoers. Universal's publicity department initially claimed the singer was 11 years old instead of 13; her actual age was not well known for many decades. For her next two vehicles, she co-starred with Bing Crosby in If I Had My Way (1940) and starred in the well-received A Little Bit of Heaven (also 1940), which reunited her with many from the Under-Pup cast. Her best-known picture is her fourth, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), in which she co-starred with W. C. Fields.

Gloria Jean made a successful transition to young adult roles. Her dramatic tour de force, as a blind girl being menaced by an escaped killer, was filmed as one of four vignettes for Julien Duvivier's Flesh and Fantasy(1943). Her performance won raves at the film's advance preview, and her segment was the best-received of the four. However, Universal removed the half-hour sequence and shelved it until 1944, when it was expanded into a feature-length melodrama, Destiny. She co-starred with Olsen and Johnson in the big-budget Ghost Catchers (1944), and in her last two Universal features, released in 1945, she was teamed with singer-actor Kirby Grant.

She resumed her movie career as a freelance performer appearing in United Artists, Columbia Pictures, and Allied Artists productions, the best-known being Copacabana (1947) with Groucho Marx. Some stage and television work followed in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as four feature films. Wonder Valley (1953), produced on location in Arkansas, was Gloria Jean's first color movie and is now a lost film. Her next feature was Air Strike (1955), a minor military drama.

After Air Strike Gloria Jean was hired by the owner of the Tahitian restaurant in Studio City, California, as a hostess, greeting and seating dinner guests. She enjoyed the experience and occasionally ran the restaurant in her employer's absence. Show-business patrons were surprised that a film star was now involved in restaurant work, resulting in sympathetic feature stories in the national press. Veteran Hollywood producer Edward Finney, himself a Gloria Jean fan, saw one of these reports and hired her to star in the lightweight comedy Laffing Time (filmed in 1959, re-released as The Madcaps in 1964). Jerry Lewis also read that Gloria Jean was working in a restaurant, and signed her for a singing role in his latest production, The Ladies Man (1961).Lewis removed almost all of her footage from the finished film; she appears only as an extra and has no dialogue. It was her last theatrical motion picture.

After her retirement from Redken, Gloria Jean lived in California with her sister, Bonnie. After Bonnie died in 2007, she moved to Hawaii, where lived with her son and his family. Very late in life she suffered health problems, including two serious falls that slowed her mobility, and an impaired heart condition. She died of heart failure and pneumonia in 2018.

Her authorized biography, Gloria Jean: A Little Bit of Heaven, was published in 2005. A tribute website, GloriaJeanSings.com, followed, again with Gloria Jean's cooperation. Her Internet presence includes a series of videos showing the actress as she appeared in recent years...

BORN ON THIS DAY: YVONNE DECARLO

Today we celebrate the birthday of actress Yvonne DeCarlo. She is best remembered as the mother on on the television series The Munsters of the 1960s, but she was so much more than a star of than that  cheesy television show. De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922, in West Point Grey (also known as Point Grey and now a part of Vancouver), British Columbia, Canada. She was the only child of William Middleton, a New Zealand salesman of English descent, and Marie De Carloa French-born "frustrated performer and dancer" of Italian and Scottish parentage.

She was generally known as "Peggy" because her mother named her after the silent film star Baby Peggy. Peggy was three years old when her father abandoned the family. According to De Carlo's firstborn son, she "only remembered crawling towards his [William's] feet and she never saw him again after he left." When De Carlo was ten (or three, according to a 1982 interview) her mother enrolled her in the June Roper School of the Dance in Vancouver. De Carlo attended Lord Roberts Elementary School, located a block away from her grandparents' home.

De Carlo and her mother made several trips to Los Angeles until 1940, when she was first runner-up to "Miss Venice Beach." She also came in fifth in a 1940s Miss California competition. She was hired by showman Nils Granlund as a dancer at the Florentine Gardens. She had been dancing for Granlund only a short time when she was arrested by immigration officials and deported to Canada. In January 1941, Granlund sent a telegram to immigration officials pledging his sponsorship of De Carlo in the U.S., and affirmed his offer of steady employment, both requirements to reenter the country.

In May 1941, she appeared in a revue, Hollywood Revels. A critic from the Los Angeles Times reviewed it saying that the "dancing of Yvonne de Carlo is especially notable." She made her radio debut with Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen who were performing extracts from a series based on their Flagg-Quint performances. De Carlo wanted to act. At the encouragement of Artie Shaw, who offered to play her wage for a month, she quit the Florentine Gardens, landing a role as a bathing beauty in Harvard, Here I Come (1941) for $25 a day. Other roles were slow to follow, and De Carlo took a job in the chorus line of Earl Carroll.

She mostly struggled in cameo roles during the 1940s, and it wasn't until Universal signed her to a long term contract that she began to make better movies. She received further recognition as an actress when she starred in the British comedies Hotel Sahara (1951) and The Captain's Paradise (1953). Her film career reached its peak when eminent producer-director Cecil B. DeMille cast her as Moses' Midianite wife, Sephora, her most prominent role, in his biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1956), which was immensely successful at the box office. Happy birthday to the actress who is much more than Lily Munster...