HOLLYWOOD REMEMBERS HAROLD RAMIS

When writer and director Harold Ramis died a few days ago, the world really lost a comedy genius. Some of my biggest laughs growing up were from movies like Ghostbusters or Groundhog Day. Ramis was well liked in Hollywood, and he left behind not only a wealth of great films but great friends as well...

BILL MURRAY
"Harold Ramis and I together did the National Lampoon Show together off Broadway, Meatballs, Stripes, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day," Murray said in a statement obtained by Time magazine. "He earned his keep on this planet. God bless him."

ADAM MCKAY
"Thank u Harold Ramis for 1000's of laughs and for being a warm, decent person. You will be very missed."

STEVE MARTIN
"So sorry to hear about the death of Harold Ramis, a comedy master. Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, and more."

STEVE CARELL
"Harold Ramis. Funny, gracious, kind hearted. A joy to have known"

OLIVIA WILDE
"Harold Ramis was a kind, wise, hilarious, brilliant guy with a buddhist heart. So grateful to have worked for him. Sending love to his fam."

NICK SWARDSON
"The world lost Harold Ramis today. Sad day for comedy and a sad day for a wonderful life gone. Take note and pay respects."

JON FAVREAU
"No no not Harold Ramis. Worked for him years ago. He was the real deal. Growing up, his work changed my life. He will be missed."

DAN AYKROYD
"Deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my brilliant, gifted and funny friend, co-writer/performer and teacher Harold Ramis. May he now get the answers he was always seeking"....

RIP: HAROLD RAMIS

Harold Ramis was one of Hollywood’s most successful comedy filmmakers when he moved his family from Los Angeles back to the Chicago area in 1996. His career was still thriving, with "Groundhog Day" acquiring almost instant classic status upon its 1993 release and 1984's "Ghostbusters" ranking among the highest-grossing comedies of all time, but the writer-director wanted to return to the city where he’d launched his career as a Second City performer.

"There's a pride in what I do that other people share because I'm local, which in L.A. is meaningless; no one's local," Ramis said upon the launch of the first movie he directed after his move, the 1999 mobster-in-therapy comedy "Analyze This," another hit. "It's a good thing. I feel like I represent the city in a certain way."

Ramis, a longtime North Shore resident, was surrounded by family when he died at 12:53 a.m. from complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a rare disease that involves swelling of the blood vessels, his wife Erica Mann Ramis said. He was 69.

Ramis' serious health struggles began in May 2010 with an infection that led to complications related to the autoimmune disease, his wife said. Ramis had to relearn to walk but suffered a relapse of the vaculitis in late 2011, said Laurel Ward, vice president of development at Ramis' Ocean Pictures production company.

Ramis leaves behind a formidable body of work, with writing credits on such enduring comedies as "National Lampoon's Animal House" (which upon its 1978 release catapulted the film career of John Belushi, with whom Ramis acted at Second City), "Stripes" (1981) and "Ghostbusters" (in which Ramis also co-starred) plus such directing efforts as "Caddyshack" (1980), "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983), "Groundhog Day" and "Analyze This."

Previously he was the first head writer (and a performer) on Second City's groundbreaking television series "Second City Television (SCTV)" (1976-79). More recently he directed episodes of NBC’s "The Office."

With his round glasses lending a professorial air, Ramis would become the calm center of storms brewed by fellow actors, playing the bushy-haired, low-key wisecracker to Bill Murray's troublemaker in "Stripes" and being the most scientific-minded "Ghostbuster." Later roles included the sympathetic doctor of James L. Brooks' "As Good as It Gets" (1997) and the "Knocked Up" (2007) dad, whose dialogue, Apatow said, was almost all improvised...

WHAT A CHARACTER: EDWARD ANDREWS

I was watching an odd episode of the Boris Karloff hosted television show "Thriller", and I saw an actor I had seen in countless films and televisions shows. I did not even know his name, but I would soon find it out! Edward Andrews was one of the most recognizable character actors on television and films between the 1950s and the 1980s. His stark white hair, imposing build and horn-rimmed glasses added to the type of roles he received, as he was often cast as an ornery boss, a cagey businessman, or a strict disciplinarian of some type.

He was born on October 8, 1914 in Griffin, Georgia, the son of an Episcopal minister, and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cleveland, Ohio, and Wheeling, West Virginia. As a child, he attended Pittsburgh's Nixon Theatre and would nab a balcony seat so as to catch a good view of the 'headliners'. At the age of twelve, he did a walk-on in a stock theatre production which featured James Gleason and he was 'hooked' on an acting career.

He attended the University of Virginia, and at age 21, made his stage debut in 1935, progressing to Broadway the same year. During this period, Andrews starred in the short-lived but very well received military drama "So Proudly We Hail" in the lead role opposite Richard Cromwell. In 1936, Andrews debuted in the film Rushin' Art. However, it was not until 1955 that he appeared in his second film. He was cast as the subversive and corrupt character of Rhett Tanner, head of a knock-them-off political machine, in The Phenix City Story.

While Andrews' film acting career began in earnest in his forties, he was consistently typecast as a grandfatherly type, and thus he is most strongly associated with these roles in later films. Among his roles are those that are soft and friendly though Andrews was equally adept at portraying sleazy businessman types or sinister bureaucrats and officials.

Well-known films in which Andrews acted include Send Me No Flowers, with Doris Day and Rock Hudson, Advise and Consent, The Young Savages, Elmer Gantry, in which he was memorable as George F. Babbitt, The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber, in both of which he played the Defense Secretary, and Avanti!, in which he was a very convincing agent of the State Department. Among his other film credits are: Summertime (1955) with Katharine Hepburn; Tension at Table Rock (1956); The Harder They Fall (1956) with Humphrey Bogart; Tea and Sympathy (1956); Three Brave Men (1957); The Young Doctors (1961); Youngblood Hawke (1964); Good Neighbor Sam (1964); The Glass Bottom Boat (1966); The Trouble with Girls with Elvis Presley (1969); Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) as Admiral Harold R. Stark; How to Frame a Figg (1971); Charley and the Angel (1973); and The Seniors (1978). In 1984, he played the character of Howard Baker in John Hughes' Sixteen Candles. He also appeared in Gremlins, filmed later the same year, which would be his final film.

Andrews was a regular on the ABC series, Broadside (1964–1965) as Commander Rogers Adrian. Kathleen Nolan held the lead role. Andrews played the character of Charley in the 1966 dramatization of Death of a Salesman, and constantly acted throughout the 1970s as Elton Dykstra on The Intruders, Ernest W. Stanley on The Man Who Came to Dinner, Mayor Chrisholm alongside Don Knotts in the 1971 film How to Frame a Figg, and Mayor Massey on The Whiz Kid and the Mystery at Riverton. In 1968, he played a safecracker in a 4-part episode of I Dream of Jeannie and later, in early 1969, he was a drug-dealing mortician on Mod Squad. He played Conductor Harry Flood on the short-lived series Supertrain. He was cast as Jack Tripper (John Ritter)'s grandfather in an episode of ABC's Three's Company. It would be his last appearance.

On March 8, 1985, Andrews died suddenly of a heart attack in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 70 and was cremated; his ashes were scattered at sea. Every role Edward Andrews was in was worth seeing, no matter what the movie or what the television show. That is a sign of an expert character actor...

THE SON OF SPENCER TRACY

It is always interesting to look into the offspring of some of our favorite stars. Some of them - well a lot of them do not deal with having a famous parent very good. The lives of Hollywood children are filled with drugs, heartache, and often suicide. However, there are some children that seemingly live normal lives. The son of Spencer Tracy was born with huge physical obstacles - however, John Tracy seemingly overcame many of them to have a wonderful life. His story is an inspiration to not only other Hollywood offspring but to anyone fighting a physical handicap in general.

When actor Spencer Tracy and his wife Louise had a boy on June 26,1924 - John Broeck Tracy, Louise noticed he wasn't responding to their voices. When Tracy was 10 months old, his mother became alarmed when a door that accidentally slammed shut failed to wake him.

"I stopped suddenly.... I stood motionless beside his crib. I called his name again -- and then I shouted it. He slept on. And so I discovered our baby was deaf," she said years later. Afraid to tell anyone, even her husband, she consulted several doctors who told her that her son had "nerve damage, cause unknown." They also said he would never talk. The Tracys refused to accept doctors' advice to "wait -- in a few years he'll be old enough for a state school," a reference to deaf education that would start when he was 6.

"We went right on talking to Johnny, singing to him, telling him nursery rhymes, and as it turned out, that was just the right thing to do," Louise once said, according to a 1983 Times story.

A specialist in New York told them John could live a “normal” life if he learned to lip read and talk. As Louise worked with her son, she realized other parents need help too with their deaf child[ren]. She started a daycare in 1942, next to the University of Southern California. The business incorporated into the John Tracy Clinic (JTC) the next year with Walt Disney as one of the first board members alongside Spencer. Over the years it grew, developing a correspondence course as well to reach those who couldn't travel to them. In 1952 the clinic moved to more modern facilities. The clinic highly promotes oralism. JTC now servers over 25,000 families a year, focusing on those aged 0-5 years.
"As a child, John Tracy couldn't have known that he would be the inspiration of a whole movement to give new hope to parents of children with hearing loss," Barbara F. Hecht, president of the clinic, told The Times.

The clinic was among the first to start a hearing-impaired child's training in infancy and make parental education a critical component. It has helped an estimated 245,000 parents and children.

It tries to educate "deaf children through their mothers and fathers, who otherwise would not know what to do with them.... I hoped it would help a great deal," John Tracy wrote in 1946 in the Volta Review, the journal of the Alexander Graham Bell Assn. for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Despite a bout with polio at 6 that left him with a weakened leg, Tracy began riding horses at 9 and competed in Riviera Country Club riding contests, he wrote in Volta. He also became a dedicated polo and tennis player.

With his father's acting career taking off, the family put down roots in 1936 on an eight-acre ranch in Encino, where they lived for 19 years.

After attending what is now the California Institute of the Arts, Tracy worked for several years in the art props department at Walt Disney Studios; Disney was a close family friend. Tracy stopped working when his eyesight started to fail in the late 1950s. Well into adulthood, he learned that his deafness was due to Usher syndrome, a genetic disease that was also to blame for his fading vision. By the early 1990s, he was legally blind from retinitis pigmentosa.

In 1953, he married Nadine Carr, a neighbor with whom he used to ride horses. They had a son, Joseph Spencer Tracy, before divorcing in 1957. A year before his mother died in 1983, Tracy moved to a Santa Monica retirement home, then later to Acton. His father died in 1967.

When asked whether he had a message for the hearing-impaired children who attend the clinic that bears his name, Tracy told the Daily News in 2003 that "I want to let the kids know they can live a full life. Sports, schools, hobbies, interests, dating, marriage, have a family, drive a car -- all of it."

John Tracy led a fullfilling life even though in the 1920s and 1930s being born with deafness was nearly a prison sentence, never being able to communicate with society. However, John and his parents changed that all. John died on June 15, 2007 - nearly 40 years to the day after his father Spencer Tracy died. In addition to his sister, Susie, and his son, Joseph, who is an artist, Tracy was survived by three grandchildren. He was not only survived by his family , but he was survived by the countless people and their families that he inspired through the years...

RECENTLY VIEWED: COLLEGE HUMOR

Bing Crosby made quite an impact as a leading man in his first feature film The Big Broadcast in 1932. Paramount Studios quickly signed him up to a contract and next up for Bing would be the college musical College Humor. In this film at least they had the decency to cast 30 year old Bing as a professor. As students they had 30 year old Jack Oakie and 34 year old Richard Arlen! This film was basically a Jack Oakie movie with Bing thrown in for added appeal.

Barney Shirrel (Jack Oakie) starts his first semester at Mid West University and works his way up in the fraternity with the help of Tex Roust (Joe Sawyer) and Mondrake (Richard Arlen), an alcoholic college football star. Barney is passionate about engineering and the law, and between his varied studies, football, and the fraternity, he neglects his girl friend Amber (Mary Kornman).

In the next term, Mondrake gives his class sweater to Barney's sister Barbara (Mary Carlisle). His drinking problem intensifies, however, when he learns that Barbara is falling in love with Professor Danvers (Bing Crosby), the singing drama teacher. When Mondrake fails to show up at an important football game against a rival university, Danvers finds him in jail. With the school's reputation at stake, Danvers has him released and takes him to the football field in time to play in the game.

Afterwards, Danvers is called before the college president (Lumsden Hare). Although rivals for Barbara's affections, Danvers stands up for Mondrake. The college president expels Mondrake for drunkenness and forces Danvers to resign because of his involvement in the matter. Feeling guilty over causing Mondrake's expulsion, Barbara proposes marriage to him. Later, however, she admits that she is not in love with him, but with Danvers. Mondrake bows out of the relationship, and Barbara rushes to Danvers' side before he leaves.

During the next term, Barney has followed Mondrake's example and taken up drinking and smoking, which is not appealing to Amber. At the big football game, Barney is in sorry shape. Mid West is losing until he receives inspiration from Tex, who has returned to watch the game. After being knocked out, Barney recovers and wins the game for Mid West.

Some time later, Barney and Amber get married and they move to his father's dairy, where Barney works his way up from the lowest position. Barney and Amber enjoy listening to Danvers singing his song on the radio.

The best part of the film was Bing's singing, and he sang some good ones like: "Down The Old Ox Road", "Moonstruck", and "Learn To Croon". Another wonderful draw of the film is Mary Carlisle, who is with us as of this writing, at the age of 101. She is probably the last person alive who was involved in this 80 year old film. There was not enough Bing and Mary Carlisle, and too much Jack Oakie for my taste. The only movie I ever liked Oakie in was The Great Dictator in 1940. I loved my years in college, but I only remotely liked this collegiate offering. If it was not for Bing, this film would have been a horrible bomb...

MY RATING: 6 OUT OF 10

THE FORGOTTEN DEATH OF TAMARA DRASIN

When air planes crash, it always amazing that one person may survive and then another person near that person might sadly perish. There is really no reasoning, and no matter what your belief system is, our fates is still not up to us. Tamara Drasin, a singer and an actress, is one such person who met her fate because of some bad luck or chance.

Tamara Drasin often credited as simply Tamara, was a singer and actress who introduced the song Smoke Gets in Your Eyes in the 1933 Broadway musical Roberta. She was born in 1905 in the Imperial Russian village of Sorochintsï, in what is modern-day Ukraine.

With her dark, exotic looks and throbbing vocal style, Drasin was ideal casting material for European characters in musicals of the 1930s. In Free For All, she was Marishka Tarasov; in Roberta, she was Princess Stephanie of Russian nobility; and in Right This Way and Leave It to Me!, she portrayed Frenchwomen. In all, Drasin appeared in seven musicals, from 1927 to 1938.

Besides "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and another ballad, "The Touch of Your Hand", in Roberta, Drasin introduced three other standards: "I Can Dream, Can't I?" and "I'll Be Seeing You" in Right This Way and "Get Out of Town" in Leave It to Me!.

Ironically, as I'll Be Seeing You was becoming one of the homefront anthems of World War II, Drasin was killed tragically. In December of 1942, a little less than a year after Pearl Harbor, entertainers were recruited to begin going overseas as a morale boost for our troops. Tamara and vocalist Jane Froman were one of the first two entertainers to be approached and agree to go. Word finally came down on February 20,1943, with accompanying orders to depart the next day from New York’s Municipal Field at LaGuardia airport. Passengers boarded a Pan American 314, the legendary Yankee Clipper, in service as part of the fleet since 1939; the 39 people on board included flight crew, military personnel, correspondents and entertainers. The planned route would ultimately take them to London, with a stop at Lisbon Portugal. On the evening of February 22, the ill-fated trip abruptly ended when the plane came to a screaming crash into the murky bacteria laden waters of the Tagus River, near Lisbon.

Her story was partially told in the Jane Froman biopic With a Song in My Heart (1952), as both were in the same plane crash. Froman later said that she had given Drasin her seat, which bothered Froman for the rest of her life. Jane Froman almost lost her leg in the tragic crash and needed surgeries for the rest of her life. Tamara Drasin was believed to have perished on impact. The world lost a real talent as a result of just a switch of airplane seats. Drasin was yet another casuality of World War II and even though Jane Froman is not exactly remembered, Drasin is completely forgotten some seventy years after her death...

BORN ON THIS DAY: JACK BENNY

I already spotlighted Jack Benny's birthday in 2012, but he deserves to remembered again. It is hard to believe comedian Jack Benny would have been 120 years old today. His comedy is timeless and is still remembered today. In my humble opinion he was and is one of the greatest comedians of all-time. Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky February 14, 1894, in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in neighboring Waukegan, Illinois. He was the son of Meyer Kubelsky and Emma Sachs Kubelsky. Meyer was a Jewish saloon owner, later, a haberdasher, who had emigrated to America from Poland. Emma had emigrated from Lithuania.

Benny began studying violin, an instrument that became his trademark, at the age of six, his parents hoping for him to become a professional violinist. He loved the instrument, but hated practice. His teacher was Otto Graham Sr., a neighbor and father of Otto Graham of NFL fame. At 14, Benny was playing in dance bands and his high school orchestra. He was a dreamer and poor at his studies, and was ultimately expelled from high school. He did poorly in business school later, as well as attempts to join his father's business. At age 17, he began playing the violin in local vaudeville theaters for $7.50 a week.

Benny spent the next twenty years in and out of vaudville with minimal success. He bacame known as a great master of ceremonies, and he even went to Hollywood. In 1929 Benny's agent, Sam Lyons, convinced Irving Thalberg, American film producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, to watch Benny at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. Benny signed a five-year contract with MGM, where his first role was in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. The next movie, Chasing Rainbows, did not do well, and after several months Benny was released from his contract and returned to Broadway in Earl Carroll's Vanities. At first dubious about the viability of radio, Benny grew eager to break into the new medium. In 1932, after a four-week nightclub run, he was invited on to Ed Sullivan's radio program, uttering his first radio spiel "This is Jack Benny talking. There will be a slight pause while you say, 'Who cares?'..." For the next year 80 years we definitely did care...