CELEBRITY ADS: BERT LAHR

 The great Bert Lahr was performing right until the end. Here is a print ad that Bert did for Lays potato chips in early 1967. He would pass away later that year on December 4, 1967...

RIP: KATHRYN CROSBY

Kathryn Crosby, a 1950s Hollywood starlet who gave up her film career to marry Bing Crosby, the Oscar-winning actor, radio star and mellifluous “White Christmas” crooner, and as his widow became chief protector of his legacy, died Sept. 20 at her home in Hillsborough, Calif. She was 90.The death was announced in a statement by publicist B. Harlan Boll, who did not note a cause.

Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Kathryn Grant — as she was then known — dominated the Texas beauty contest circuit between Houston and Corpus Christi. A 5-foot-3, auburn-haired stunner, she was crowned “Golden Girl of the Texas Baseball League,” “Miss Buccaneer-Navy” (dressed in pirate motif) and “Queen of the Houston Rodeo and Fat Stock Exposition,” for which she was teased among rivals and friends alike as “Miss Fat Stock.”

She had met Crosby in 1953, a year after she was named first runner-up in the Miss Texas pageant and landed a Paramount studios contract. She was 20 at the time and was on the studio lot, breathlessly ferrying a load of petticoats to the wardrobe department, when she rushed past Crosby, then 50 and a recent widower. He was leaning against the doorjamb of his dressing room, casually whistling a tune.

"Howdy, Tex,” he asked with bemusement. “What’s your hurry?”

Crosby had been a box-office juggernaut on the lot for two decades, an audience favorite not only for his vaudeville-style “Road” movies with Bob Hope but also for his Oscar-winning turn as a singing priest in “Going My Way” (1944). In her spare time between walk-on roles, the starstruck young Kathryn filed dispatches for newspapers back home under the title “Texas Gal in Hollywood” and soon returned to Crosby to request an interview.

“You a reporter?” Crosby asked.

“I’m a columnist,” she said.

“The dickens you are,” he replied. “I didn’t know they came so pretty.”

Crosby agreed to the interview, then invited her to tea and later to dinner. She described an instant and mutual infatuation between herself and Crosby, who exuded a languorous sex appeal with his piercing blue eyes and the virile romantic baritone voice that had sold hundreds of millions of records, among them “Please” and “Pennies From Heaven.”

Their courtship lasted nearly four complicated years. Crosby disappeared from her life for months at a time and jilted her twice, only to emerge with reinvigorated ardor. As he pursued other on-set romances, including with actresses Grace Kelly and Inger Stevens, Kathryn was determined to focus on her own pursuit of stardom.

After being dropped by Paramount, she was picked up by Columbia studios and promoted as a versatile leading lady. She had a featured role as a card dealer in the anti-corruption drama “The Phenix City Story” (1955) and co-starred opposite Audie Murphy in the western “The Guns of Fort Petticoat,” Jack Lemmon in the military comedy “Operation Mad Ball” and Tony Curtis in the drama “Mister Cory,” all in 1957.

She was a princess in “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” (1958), a trapeze artist in “The Big Circus” (1959) and, in perhaps her best performance, a surprise witness in “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959), holding her own in a cross-examination showdown with a slick attorney played by George C. Scott.

By the time Bing Crosby eloped with her to Las Vegas in 1957, Kathryn, a Methodist, had converted to Catholicism at his insistence but extracted a promise that she could continue her career after their marriage. But he soon reneged, preferring she stay at home as he wound down into semi-retirement and managed his many business interests and investments, ranging from baseball teams to thoroughbred horses to real estate.

She ultimately went along. Mrs. Crosby later said she wished to give her husband a life vastly different from his anguished and thoroughly dysfunctional first marriage, to actress Dixie Lee, whose alcoholism left him so despairing that he often stayed away from home, leaving her and his children to fend for themselves.

By the early 1960s, Bing and Kathryn had left Southern California and settled in a 24-room Norman-style mansion in Hillsborough, an upscale suburb of San Francisco. She had three children with Bing — including actress Mary Frances Crosby, whose character shot J.R. on the TV series “Dallas” — and spent five years completing a degree in registered nursing. She also was a public-school teacher, host of a morning TV talk show in San Francisco, and the author of a rosy 1967 memoir (“Bing and Other Things”).

She modeled clothes for designer Jean Louis, did occasional summer stock with Bing’s approval, accompanied her husband and children on bird-hunting and fishing expeditions and helped him manage his constellation of properties across the West and in Mexico. She vivaciously sang duets with Bing on TV specials, including his annual Christmas show, and appeared with their children in Minute Maid frozen orange juice commercials, a product Bing endorsed.

As a more contented spouse and father, Bing spent a great deal more time with his second family than he had with his first, Mrs. Crosby said. Nevertheless, she said, he could be a controlling and mercurial perfectionist at home, even as he tried to live up to the laid-back Mr. Lucky persona he had long cultivated — the charming and carefree all-American fellow who just happened to have a voice of peerless emotional resonance.

“He doesn’t exactly lose his temper in the traditional way,” Mrs. Crosby told an interviewer. “He just gets very quiet. That’s when I start wondering what I’ve done. You see, Bing will never say what is bothering him.”

With her nursing credentials, she looked closely after Bing’s well-being amid health setbacks, including after he plummeted 20 feet from a sound stage in March 1977 while rehearsing a TV show, seriously injuring his back. “She really took care of him,” said jazz critic Gary Giddins, an authoritative Bing biographer. Because she was emotionally stable and the family disciplinarian, he added, “She also allowed him to be the kind of father he had not been in the first marriage.”

In October 1977, he was on a golfing trip in Spain with friends when he died suddenly, at age 74 after a heart attack, just after completing a round of play.

Mrs. Crosby gradually restarted her acting career, mostly with touring theater companies and also in a cabaret act that paid tribute to Bing.

To tell her own story, Mrs. Crosby wrote “My Life With Bing” (1983) and “My Last Years with Bing” (2002). Of all the roles she would play — on screen and stage and in private life — she said there was one that made all the others possible. “I want you to understand,” she once told People magazine, “that my position in this world rests on being Mrs. Bing Crosby.

BRIGADOON: A 1954 REVIEW

Here is the original review of the movie musical Brigadoon, which was released 70 years ago. This review appeared in the New York Times on September 17, 1954...

By Bosley Crowther


AS we recall, the drama critics had a bit of a difficult time placing their pen-points precisely on the secret of the charm of "Brigadoon" when that whimsical play with music opened on Broadway some seven years ago. Was it the dancing, the music, the acting, the story, the decor—or, indeed, a graceful blending of all these elements—that made it a bright and spinning joy? As we recall, the secret was never entirely resolved.And now we're afraid the film critics—at least, this one—will find it equally hard to say why the film made from that triumph is so curiously flat and out-of-joint, rambling all over creation and seldom generating warmth or charm.It cannot be blamed on the story, for the story told in the film, which M-G-M delivered to the Music Hall yesterday, is exactly the same wistful fancy that was spun out upon the stage as written by Alan Jay Lerner, who also prepared the script. 

It is the story of two American hunters who go astray in the Scottish hills and there come upon a spectral village that is lost to the world and to time. Naturally, one of the fellows falls in love with a bonnie ghost, which leads to disturbing complications. It's a fairy-tale story, but it's okay.And it certainly cannot be for want of elaborate and handsome decor that this huge, polychrome motion picture lacks the joy of the show upon the stage. For Arthur Freed has produced it with what appears not a thought of the expense of Scottish costumes, thatched cottages, heather blossoms, scenic backdrops and furze-covered hills. A whole highland village and half a county are spread across the CinemaScope screen. To be sure, it does look artificial, but it is scenery. That, too, is okay.

The music? Well, let's acknowledge that a few of the better songs that made the stage show sweet and lovely are strangely omitted from the film. "Come to Me, Bend to Me" is missing. So is "My Mother's Wedding Day." And, for some unaccountable reason, they have dropped "There But For You Go I."However, "Waitin' for My Dearie" and "I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean" are still given choral circulation, with a big boost from stereophonic sound, "The Heather on the Hill" still has its fragrance. And there's "Almost Like Being in Love." These, plus some other choral numbers, keep the musical franchise in line.But the dancing and the performance—well, we're afraid that it is in here that the life and the smoothness of the original have been perceptibly lost—which is odd, because the personable Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse have the lead dancing roles. Even so, their several individual numbers are done too slickly, too mechanistically. What should be wistful and lyric smack strongly of trickery and style. And the several ensemble dances—with the exception of the wild and fierce "The Chase," wherein the Scots pursue a fugitive from their village—seem as calculated as Rockette parades.It might be noted that Mr. Kelly has taken credit for the choreography. On the stage, it was by Agnes De Mille.And those performances! Mr. Kelly's is as thin and metallic as a nail; Miss Charisse's is solemn and posey. A dismal young Scots lassie she! Van Johnson as the friend of Mr. Kelly pouts in a most unfunny way, and Barry Jones, Hugh Laing and Jimmy Thompson make peculiarly stagey Scottish ghosts. Vincente Minnelli's direction lacks his usual vitality and flow."Brigadoon" on the screen, we must say, is pretty weak synthetic Scotch.On the stage at the Music Hall are Gill Johnson and Mike Madill, comedians; Marlene Dell and Don Farnsworth, ballet soloists; Anthony Makas, pianist, and the Glee Club, Corps de Ballet and Rockettes...

SOURCE

FORGOTTEN ONES: CARL GRAYSON

Anyone remember Carl Grayson? Born in Canton, Ohio to Swiss and German Immigrants, his name at birth was Carl Frederick Graub. At the age of 5, he suffered a serious injury when he fell on a board that caused a protruding nail to penetrate into his forehead. During childhood, violin lessons helped him achieve a full recovery, and he became more proficient at playing as he grew older. By his late teenage years, Graub began playing recitals and concerts professionally throughout Ohio and Indiana. He went abroad to study music at Oxford University.

While in Europe, he met bandleader Johnny Hamp who signed him as a violinist and vocalist for Hamp’s Kentucky Serenaders Orchestra during the band’s 1930 England tour. Not long after, Graub began singing and playing with the Henry Busse Orchestra. Busse was the bandleader at the Chez Paree Night Club in Chicago owned by notorious gangster boss Al Capone. At Chez Paree, Graub met a singer named Georgia Madelon Baker and they married in Chicago in June, 1933.

Around this time, Graub began billing himself professionally as Carl Grayson, while his new wife billed herself as Madelon Grayson. One night in June 1936, Grayson was spotted by Columbia Studio Chief Harry Cohn singing “Is It True What They Say About Dixie”. Cohn offered Grayson a job on the spot, reported the next day by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper as “the quickest contract in film history”. Grayson moved to Hollywood the same year. At Columbia, Cohn visioned Grayson as a replacement for Roy Rogers who wanted out of his Columbia contract to work for Republic Pictures. Columbia billed him as Donald Grayson for several pictures, beginning with Dodge City Trail (1936) and Outlaws of the Prairie (1937) with Donald Grayson singing with the Sons of the Pioneers. Next came The Old Wyoming Trail (1937), Cattle Raiders (1938), and Call of the Rockies (1938). Bob Nolan replaced Grayson as the Sons lead singer, and about as quick as he had been signed, his three-year contact with Columbia was not renewed.

In the meantime, Madelon Grayson appeared in Girls of the Road (1940) and soon thereafter, filed for divorce against her husband, with the Los Angeles Times reporting the couple’s contentious allegations as front page news on March 16, 1940.

Free to return to musical opportunities, Grayson answered the calling from Spike Jones who was actively pursuing unique and talented musicians willing to play and perform his brand of zany musical comedy. The band signed a long-term engagement as the house band for the Jonathan Club in Los Angeles, billing itself the Donald Grayson and His Jonathan Club Dance Band. When Jones recruited clarinetist Del Porter, he brought in members of his band, the Feather Merchants, and the growing new orchestra emerged as Spike Jones and the City Slickers, the name a derivative from an early 1940’s Cindy Walker song called “Gonna Stomp Them City Slickers Down”.

Jones quickly incorporated Grayson’s vocal talents into songs and routines that included his unique and cartoonish vocal ability of his that became known as “glugging”. The earliest City Slicker recording of this style of vocalization was used in the song Siam (recorded July/August 1942). More famously, Grayson reemployed “gluggling” in “Cocktails For Two” (1945), and the routine was immortalized through a Soundies film version that can be enjoyed on YouTube. His last “gluggling” effort was recorded in “Hawaiian War Chant” released in October 1946.

It was no secret that early member of the City Slickers were heavy drinkers, and when Jones gave up drinking himself, he quickly became intolerant of alcohol abuse among the musicians he employed in his band. As popularity of the City Slickers soared after the release of “Der Fuhrer’s Face”, Grayson was among several members who made a mass exodus in the transition where Jones soon found himself in a better position to pick talent for his band from a broader pool of expert musicians, skillful comedians and multi-talented performers, rather than rely on the comparatively frat house party culture that pervaded among the band’s earlier ranks. Grayson’s alcoholism had become problematic, and he was replaced by clarinet player and equally-competent “gluggist” Mickey Katz in 1946. He played with Eddy Brandt and the Hollywood Hicks, but faded into obscurity, most likely due to pervasive drinking that too often becomes its own fulltime and all-consuming job.

He died in obscurity in April 1958 at age 49 without fanfare or an obituary. The cause of death was said to be liver cirrhosis and cancer. Only a handful of people who remembered him were said to have attended his funeral or memorial service, but there is no published record known. Disposition of his remains may have been assigned through indigent means: a sad ending for this once-talented and promising star whose light faded far too early on this earth...

A DISCOGRAPHY MOMENT: PEGGY LEE - SEPTEMBER 14, 1950

Here is what Peggy Lee was recording for Capitol Records on this day in 1950...

September 14, 1950

Location: Capitol Recording Studio, 5515 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, CA

Label: CAPITOL
Capitol Session #1912

Peggy Lee (ldr), Dave Barbour And His Orchestra (acc), Unknown (b, str, p, d), Peggy Lee (v), The Jud Conlon Choir (bkv)

a. 6607-7Master Take (Capitol) Where Are You? - 3:01(Jimmy McHugh, Harold Adamson) / arr: Richard "Dick" Hazard
CAPITOL 78 & 451298 & F 1298 — {Ay, Ay, Chug A Chug / Where Are You?} (1950)
Armed Forces Radio Service 16" Transcription DiscP 1785 - P 1786 — Basic Music Library [6 Peggy Lee vocals] (1951)
CAPITOL (10") LP(United Kingdom) Lc 6584 — Capitol Presents ... Peggy Lee (1953)

b. 6608-8Master Take (Capitol) Once In A Lifetime - 2:46(Mel Torme, Robert Wells) / arr: Richard "Dick" Hazard
CAPITOL 78 & 451244 & F 1244 — {Once In A Lifetime / Life Is So Peculiar} (1950)
Armed Forces Radio Service 16" Transcription DiscP 1725 - P 1276 — Basic Music Library [6 Peggy Lee vocals] (1950)
 CAPITOL©EMI CD7243 5 39756 2 3 — THE SINGLES COLLECTION (2002)

c. 6609-3Master Take (Capitol) Something To Remember You By - 2:51(Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz) / arr: Henry J. "Heinie" Beau
Collectors' Choice Licensed CDCcm 917 — THE LOST '40'S & '50'S CAPITOL MASTERS (2008)

MEMORIES OF THE BIRDCAGE

Steve Martin was originally cast as Armand Goldman and Robin Williams was to play Albert Goldman in "The Birdcage" (1996) but scheduling conflicts caused Martin to drop out of the role and Williams then decided to assume the role of Armand instead, as he wanted a change from flamboyant characters. The role ultimately played by Nathan Lane.

Filmmaker and PBS producer Rick McKay was hired by director Mike Nichols, months before filming of "Birdcage" began, to go to Paris, London, San Francisco, and Atlanta to make a feature length documentary about drag queens. McKay did thorough research to find drag queens all over the world to interview and to film in performance. This finished documentary was used to train Lane and Williams.

Nichols required that Lane and Williams filmed at least one good take of each scene sticking to the script before he would allow them to improvise (something both of the actors are known for).

While Lane, like his character in the film, is openly gay, he hadn't come out at the time of the film's release.

"There's not a day in my life I'm not proud of being gay, but I just wasn't ready for that attention to be placed on it. I remember being on Oprah. Well, not on 'Oprah.' Near Oprah. She started saying, 'Now, Nathan, you got all those girlie moves going down in 'The Birdcage', where's all that coming from? You're so good at all that girlie stuff!'"

During that interview, Winfrey asked Lane if he was afraid that taking a gay role would typecast him for gay roles or make people question his sexuality for the rest of his career. Lane replied, “Not really…. I don’t have an image to uphold. I’m basically a character actor. I’m not a sex symbol. From role to role I’m usually pretty different, and the material was so incredible, I don’t know how you could turn it down because you would be worrying about your image. It’s a wonderful character and very nurturing….”

The celebrity magazine Us later asked Lane point-blank, “Are you gay?” and Lane responded, “I’m 40, single, and I work a lot in the musical theater. You do the math. What do you need — flashcards?”

RIP: JAMES EARL JONES

James Earl Jones, a commanding presence onscreen who nonetheless gained greater fame off-camera as the sonorous voice of Star Wars villain Darth Vader and Mufasa, the benevolent leader in The Lion King, died Monday. He was 93.

Jones, who burst into national prominence in 1970 with his powerful Oscar-nominated performance as America’s first Black heavyweight champion in The Great White Hope, died at his home in Dutchess County, New York, Independent Artist Group announced.

The distinguished star made his big-screen debut in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and was noteworthy in many other films, including Claudine (1974) opposite Diahann Carroll; Field of Dreams (1989), as the reclusive author Terence Mann; and The Sandlot (1993), as the intimidating neighborhood guy Mr. Mertle.

For his work on the stage, Jones earned two best actor Tony Awards: for originating the role of Jack Jefferson — who was based on real-life boxer Jack Johnson — in 1968 in Howard Sackler’s Great White Hope and for playing the patriarch who struggles to provide for his family in a 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning production of August Wilson’s Fences.

Jones, the recipient of an honorary Oscar at the 2011 Governors Awards and a special Tony for lifetime achievement in 2017, was one of the handful of people to earn an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony and the first actor to win two Emmys in one year.

“You cannot be an actor like I am and not have been in some of the worst movies like I have,” the self-deprecating star said when he was given his Academy Award. “But I stand before you deeply honored, mighty grateful and just plain gobsmacked.”

Jones’ rise to become one of the most-admired American actors of all time was remarkable considering he suffered from a debilitating stutter as a child.

James Earl Jone's last role was 2021's Coming 2 America, and he retired shortly after finishing that role...

RECENTLY VIEWED: BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE

This past weekend, I had the chance to revisit one of my boyhood movies I saw - Beetlejuice! Decades after the original film, a sequel is out, which is pretty entertaining. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is an American dark fantasy comedy horror film directed by Tim Burton from a screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. A sequel to Beetlejuice (1988) and the second film of the Beetlejuice franchise, the film stars Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O'Hara reprising their roles alongside new cast members Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, and Willem Dafoe.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opened the 81st Venice International Film Festival on August 28, 2024, and was theatrically released overseas on September 4, 2024, and in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures two days later. The film has received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $145.4 million worldwide. The model village was built by Curvature Group.

Even right after the orignal film came out, sequels were announced. Even absurd titles like Beetlejuice Goes To Hawai were thrown around, but nothing came of it through the years In February 2022, a sequel was announced again, this time produced by Brad Pitt's studio Plan B Entertainment, alongside Warner Bros. Burton stated in October 2022 that he was not involved in the project, but backtracked days later, saying "nothing is out of the question." Burton ultimately returned as the film's director and tried to strip everything from the story to go to the basics of working with "good people, actors and puppets," feeling that the project made him reflect why he liked making movies. Burton came up with the film's story upon thinking about Lydia Deetz, a character of his with whom he connected as a teenager, wondering what could have been of her life after the first film's events and how her family life could have developed, turning from a "cool teenager" into a "f—ed-up adult" who hosts a popular medium-related show titled Ghost House with Lydia Deetz whose daughter hates her, Burton credited the years of his life since the original film's release as the reason he couldn't do Beetlejuice Beetlejuice until then, having experienced many of those things himself, finding the project a very personal movie starring a weird family in a family-friendly and emotional story of three generations experiencing basic things everyone feels in life when growing up. Burton and Keaton agreed to not use excessive amounts of technology, and sought to make the film feel "handmade".

Filming wrapped in November of 2023, and it was really well made. There were a lot of storylines going on. Some worked and some seemed unneccassary like the story line with Beetlejuice and his ex-wife. Danny Devito makes a fun cameo appearance, and the whole movie was fun and definitely worth the trip. My daughter and I had a great time!

MY RATING: 8 out of 10

PAST OBITS: CLARK GABLE

Here is the obituary for movie legend Clark Gable as it appeared in the LA Times on November 17, 1960...

Clark Gable died at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital Wednesday at 11 p.m.The 59-year-old star had been hospitalized since he was stricken with a heart attack Nov. 6.B.J. Caldwell, hospital administrator, said it was assumed that another heart attack took the actor’s life.

“He appeared to be doing fine,” said Caldwell. “He was sitting up, then he put his head back on the pillow and that was that.”

A private duty nurse was the only other person in the room when death came. Dr. Fred Cerini, Gable’s personal physician, was at the actor’s side “in a matter of minutes,” but it was too late to do anything, Caldwell said.Gable’s wife, Kay, was asleep across the hall when the actor died. She has been staying at the hospital since her husband was stricken and they had eaten dinner together a few hours earlier.

Mrs. Gable was reported bearing up “reasonably well” from the shock..Gable, who was stricken at his San Fernando Valley home, had been reported resting comfortably earlier in the evening.Gable was eagerly awaiting the birth of the baby he and his wife expected in March—his first child.

“This is a dividend that has come too late in life,” Gable recently told a reporter during film shooting in Nevada.

“When I wind up this picture I’m taking off until after the baby is born. I want to be there and I want to be there a good many months afterward.”

The actor’s death followed by only 11 days the deaths of actor Ward Bond and pioneer movie maker Mack Sennett, 81. Both men also died of apparent heart attacks.

The couple had returned to their home in Encino earlier this month after Gable had finished final scenes for “The Misfits,” in which he stars with Marilyn Monroe.

He reportedly was paid more that $48,000 a week in overtime payments for the three weeks of extra work on the film. Gable was long the undisputed “king” of movieland and one of its highest paid stars.

A native of Cadiz, Ohio, Gable broke into the movies after a fling as a roustabout in the Texas and Oklahoma oilfields. Under the tutelage of his first wife, Josephine Dillon, who operated an “acting clinic” in Hollywood coaching stage actors for the movies, Gable acquired acting “polish” that soon shot him to stardom. The actor divorced Miss Dillon on April 1, 1930, and later married Mrs. Rita Langham in 1931. They were separated in 1935 and were subsequently divorced in March, 1939.

Then came his marriage to Carole Lombard. The couple were married in Kingman, Ariz., in 1939 and after the marriage drove back to Los Angeles and went back to work. Gable and Miss Lombard, each with a lusty sense of humor, quickly became a Hollywood legend. Shortly after World War II broke out, the actress went on a bond selling tour and on her return home was killed in a plane crash near Las Vegas.

In 1949 the actor married Douglas Fairbanks’ widow, Lady Sylvia Ashley. She divorced him in 1952. He took his fifth wife, Kay Williams Spreckles, a 37-year-old divorcee, in 1955. Gable’s film career included an Academy Award winning performance in “It Happened One Night,” and he achieved tremendous success in such other movies as “Mutiny on the Bounty” and “Gone With the Wind.”

SOURCE

A TRIBUTE TO MY WEDDING: 20 YEARS LATER

I know this blog is for movie and music nostalgia, but for anyone that knows me, you know I am nostalgic for anything. I can not miss sharing that today marks 20 years of marriage for myself and my wife. What a partner she has been for the last two decades. It seems like only yesterday, I asked her out on our first date. Now two children and twenty years later, I am as in love with this lady as much as I was back then!

BING CROSBY - THE HOLLYWOOD YEARS: PART 4