MUSIC BREAK: THE FOUR ACES - THE CHRISTMAS SONG

MUSIC BREAK: CONNEE BOSWELL - WHEN CHRISTMAS IS GONE

DICK VAN DYKE AT 99

 Today marks Dick Van Dyke's 99th birthday. He's led an amazing life, and here is an amazing video he just made with Coldplay. It's a tearjerker so have a tissue ready...

HEALTHWATCH: CHEVY CHASE

Comedian Chevy Chase has had his share of health in recent years with a near fatal heart failure in 2021. In the below picture, it shows Chevy with his new grandchild. Unfortunately, he has a bad bruise on his eye. Sources close to Chevy say that it is from a fall in a hotel room. The Christmas vacation actor, who is 81 years old now, rarely makes movies these days and travels throughout the country doing Q&A showings and meet and greets...

STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: VERA-ELLEN

 Here is an interesting photo. Upon looking at it, it might not mean much to many people. It's a mother and her daughter. However, that daughter would become the wonderful dancer Vera-Ellen. The White Christmas actress was a long way from Hollywood. The picture was taken in 1939, when Vera-Ellen was 18. Her mother Alma was 48...

HOLLYWOOD SCANDALS: THE DEATH OF PAUL BERN

Before she died at the very young age of 26, actress Jean Harlow had already lived quite a life of scandal and intrigue. Her first marriage, which began when she was only 16, lasted just two short years. Her second marriage to MGM producer Paul Bern also ended in tragedy. Two months after marrying Jean Harlow, on September 5, Bern was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in their home on Easton Drive in Beverly Hills, California.The coroner ruled his death a suicide.

Police discovered a note at the scene that read as follows:

"Dearest Dear,
Unfortuately  this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abject humiliation, I Love you.
Paul
You understand that last night was only a comedy"

Authorities viewed this as a suicide note signed by BernTo the police, and before a grand jury, Harlow's only statement was that she "knew nothing". Harlow was made an executor of her husband's estate by the Californian judge. Harlow never publicly spoke on the matter. She died of renal failure (caused by a childhood bout of scarlet fever) in June 1937 at the age of 26.

Two thousand people attended Bern's funeral, held on September 9, 1932, at the Grace Chapel at Inglewood Park Cemetery.Conrad Nagel delivered the eulogy. Bern was cremated, and his ashes were interred in the Golden West Mausoleum at Inglewood Park Cemetery.

In 1990, film producer Samuel Marx, a friend and MGM colleague of both Bern and Irving Thalberg, published a book giving a different version of Bern's death. Marx, at the time MGM's story editor (the head of the screenwriting department), said he had gone to Bern's house in the early morning of September 5, 1932, before the police were notified of the body's discovery, and had seen Thalberg tampering with the evidence. The next day, he had been among the studio executives who were told by Louis B. Mayer that the case would have to be ruled "suicide because of impotence" in order to avoid a scandal which would have finished Harlow's film career. Marx, after reviewing the evidence, concluded that Bern was murdered by his abandoned common-law wife Dorothy Millette, who then committed suicide by drowning, jumping overboard from the Delta King on the way from San Francisco to Sacramento, California...

THE BOX OFFICE STARS: 1955

 It is hard to believe that when one talks about 1955 - it is nearly 70 years ago! It just doesn't seem right. Anyways, here are the top ten stars of 1955. What a great year for movies...

1. JAMES STEWART

2. GRACE KELLY 

3. JOHN WAYNE

4. WILLIAM HOLDEN

5. GARY COOPER
6. MARLON BRANDO
7. DEAN MARTIN/JERRY LEWIS
8. HUMPHREY BOGART
9. JUNE ALLYSON
10. CLARK GABLE