BORN ON THIS DAY: MARTY FELDMAN

Marty Feldman had a face made for comedy. He was a modern day Buster Keaton, who genius never was fully recognized. Feldman was born on this day, June 8th, in 1934. Feldman was born in the East End of London, the son of Jewish immigrants from Kiev. He recalled his childhood as "solitary".

A BBC documentary also explained that an operation due to his Graves' disease resulted in his eyes being more protruded and misaligned (strabismus).[Leaving school at 15, he worked at the Dreamland fun fair in Margate. By the age of 20, he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian.

Feldman's performances on American television included The Dean Martin Show and Marty Feldman's Comedy Machine. On film, he was Igor (pronounced "EYE-gore") in Young Frankenstein where many lines were improvised. Gene Wilder says he had Feldman in mind when he wrote the part. At one point, Dr Frankenstein (Wilder) scolds Igor with the phrase, "Damn your eyes!" Feldman turns to the camera, points to his misaligned eyes, grins and says, "Too late!"

Feldman met American comedy writer Alan Spencer on the set of Young Frankenstein when Spencer was a teenager. Spencer was a fan of Feldman as a writer and performer. Feldman offered Spencer guidance that led him to create the television show Sledge Hammer!



He also made one LP, I Feel a Song Going Off (1969), re-released as The Crazy World of Marty Feldman. The songs were written by Dennis King, John Junkin and Bill Solly (a writer for Max Bygraves and The Two Ronnies). It was re-released as a CD in 2007.

In 1976, Feldman ventured into Italian cinema, starring with Barbara Bouchet in 40 gradi all'ombra del lenzuolo (Sex with a Smile), a sex comedy. He appeared in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, as well as directing and starring in The Last Remake of Beau Geste. He guest-starred in the "Arabian Nights" episode of The Muppet Show with several Sesame Street characters.

Feldman died from a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico City on 2 December 1982, during the making of the film Yellowbeard. Michael Mileham, who made the behind-the-scenes movie Group Madness about the making of Yellowbeard, said he and Feldman swam to an island where a local was selling lobster and coconuts. Mileham and Feldman used the same knife on their lobsters; Mileham claimed he got shellfish poisoning the next day, and theorised that this could also have contributed to Feldman's death.

He is buried in Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery near his idol, Buster Keaton, in the Garden of Heritage...

REMEMBERING: MY GRANDFATHER

My grandfather was like an icon to me. He was someone that I was sure would always be there for me. I counted on his strong shoulder for all sorts of advice a young adult would need. His words of wisdom and most importantly his friendship I depended upon on for everything. That would all change suddenly on July 6, 2002.

On that day my grandparents were eating dinner out. Leaving dinner, my grandfather pulled the car over suddenly without warning, laid his head back, and died of a heart attack next to my grandmother. They had just celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary with the whole family days earlier. My grandfather was 73.

It's hard to believe that it has been ten years since his death. I still miss him tremendously, but I am not that sad anymore. Now I have a wonderful wife and family of my own, and the lessons that my grandfather taught me through the years and continuing to help me. It is like he is still here.

My grandfather was also the person who first got me into classic movies and music. I spent a lot of time over my grandparent's house, and he instilled in me a love of this classic age of great entertainment. Together we would cry watching Cary Grant in "Penny Serenade"(1941) or laugh at Eddie Cantor looking lost in "Roman Scandals"(1933). His basement was full of 78rpms, and I would call his cluttered basement "record heaven", and it was a heaven to me. I had problems with my own father, and my grandparents' house and my grandfather's basement was an escape to me. It seemed to me that my grandfather had every record I could possibly listen to from Bing Crosby to Vera Lynn and from Betty Hutton to Al Jolson. I spent many happy days in that hot and non air conditioned basement. I loved every minute of it.

So now ten years later I am reflecting on my grandfather's life with a mix of emotions. I think of him with sadness that he died too soon and too young. I think of him with happiness on what he passed on to me and of all the great moments we shared. Mostly I think of what a great man he was. There are many legends in Hollywood like Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, and James Cagney, but my grandfather was the biggest and greatest legend in my eyes...and he always will be.

GOD BLESS KATE SMITH

One of the greatest patriotic songs written in the last century was Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". While Berlin wrote the music and lyrics, it was singer Kate Smith that gave the song its popularity and its dramatic interpretation. Kate Smith gave her all in every song she sang and every performance she performed, and that is why she was popular in the entertainment field for close to fifty years.

Kate Smith was born Kathryn Elizabeth Smith on May 1, 1907 in Greenville, Virginia. Her professional musical career began in 1930, when she was discovered by Columbia Records vice president Ted Collins, who became her longtime partner and manager. Collins put her on radio in 1931. She sang the controversial top twenty song of 1931, "That's Why Darkies Were Born". She appeared in 1932 in Hello Everybody!, with co-stars Randolph Scott and Sally Blane, and in the 1943 wartime movie This is the Army she sang "God Bless America".

Smith began recording in 1926; in 1931, she sang "Dream a Little Dream of Me." Her biggest hits were "River, Stay 'Way From My Door" (1931), "The Woodpecker Song" (1940), "The White Cliffs of Dover" (1941), "Rose O'Day" (1941), "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" (1942), "There Goes That Song Again" (1944), "Seems Like Old Times" (1946), and "Now Is the Hour" (1947). Her theme song was "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain"; she had helped write the lyrics. Smith greeted her audience with "Hello, everybody!" and signed off with "Thanks for listenin'."



Her feature film Hello, Everybody (1932) was released shortly before Mae West's She Done Him Wrong (1933). At this time, Paramount Pictures was in deep financial trouble. Paramount initially promoted Smith's film and it proved to be disappointing at the box office. On the other hand, West's first starring film was a huge success. This situation added to the ridicule of Smith's size and appearance, but she was featured in a number of Paramount shorts without issue. She continued to be successful on radio throughout the 1930s into the 1940s.

Kate Smith, who never married, rented various apartments in New York City during her long career. She had a home in Arlington, Va., and kept a summer home on a small island in Lake Placid, New York. She led an active social life and loved having house guests both in town and at Lake Placid.

Her public image was of a happy, agreeable, buoyant personality, very bright and very informed. But those who worked with her in show business also knew her as an executive who knew better than anyone else how to stage her shows, how to present herself at her best and how to keep everything at the highest professional level. New Yorkers privileged to sit in on her radio broadcasts saw her supervising every aspect of her programs with great knowledge and utmost taste. She was also known for being ahead of the trends. Even on her later tours she was presenting all her hit songs in a long medley at the end and devoting her repertoire to the Beatles, Jimmy Webb, Michel Legrand, and other contemporary composers. In the later days "God Bless America" was sung in a medley with "Sing" from "Sesame Street."



In her later years also, her usually conservative dark gowns were replaced by colorful sequined creations worthy of the Supremes (and, slimmed down, she wore them just as well). Along with Peggy Lee she was one of the few long-careered singers to wade into rock music fearlessly and effectively and that placed her on T.V. variety shows including those of Sonny and Cher, Tony Orlando and Dawn and Donny and Marie Osmond. She also, against all odds, enjoyed some of her greatest recording success in her later years with a series of outstanding albums of contemporary music on RCA Victor. She often said she wasn't much one for nostalgia and also said she was always willing to try something new, at least once. For a living legend, she also was one hip and savvy lady. She was also a cook of considerable note and her name was on a series of best-selling cookbooks which today are collectors' items.

Kate Smith was impaired by diabetes and her weight problem during her last years, and eventually used a wheelchair. She had a diabetic stroke in 1976 that she never recovered from. She died in Raleigh on June 17, 1986 at the age of 79. For over a year following her death, her remains were stored in a vault at Saint Agnes Cemetery in Lake Placid, while officials of St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church and the singer's executors disputed the meaning of a clause in her will.

God bless America and God bless Kate Smith...

RIP: ANDY GRIFFITH

Andy Griffith, a television legend who starred in two iconic series that debuted a quarter-century apart, has died. He was 86.

Bill Friday, former UNC president and a close friend of Andy Griffith confirmed to North Carolina NBC affiliate WITN-TV that he died this morning. The death has not been independently confirmed by NBC News.

Emergency Medical Services responded to an early morning call Tuesday from Griffith's home in Roanoke Island, N.C., according to reports.

Griffith was already a star of Broadway, comedy recordings and film when "The Andy Griffith Show" debuted on Oct. 3, 1960. Griffith starred as Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, North Carolina, a widower with a young son known only as Opie, played by Ron Howard, who would go on to star as Richie on "Happy Days" before becoming an award-winning director.

With its earworm of a theme song and a cast of eccentric supporting players, including Don Knotts and Jim Nabors, "The Andy Griffith Show" was an instant hit with ratings perennially in the top 10 during its eight-season run.

The show's popularity was so enduring that it spawned a pair of spin-offs, "Mayberry R.F.D." and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C."

Nearly 20 years later, Griffith would emerge anew in 1986 on network TV as "Matlock," an aged country lawyer from Georgia with a southern drawl, a winning smile and an unblemished record in the courtroom.

Though the show isn't viewed with the same esteem as "The Andy Griffith Show"—it was a frequent punch line on shows like "The Simpson"—it would run for nine seasons.

Born on June 1, 1926, in Mt. Airy, N.C., Griffith first gained famed as a monologist, on the strength of his recording "What It Was, Was Football," which is told from the perspective of a backwoods yokel telling of setting eyes on the game for the first time. The recording would be a hit in some parts of the country, earning Griffith an appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," and was later turned into a feature in Mad magazine.

In 1996, Griffith would return to the recording studio to cut an album, "I Love to Tell the Story, - 25 Timeless Hymns," which would earn him a Grammy for Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album.

Griffith is survived by his third wife, Cindi Knight, whom he wed in 1983, and his daughter Dixie Nan, from his first marriage, to Barbara Bray Edwards.

Perhaps no one better captured Griffith's legacy than President George W. Bush.

“TV shows come and go, but there’s only one Andy Griffith,” said President Bush upon awarding Griffith the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. “And we thank him for being such a friendly and beloved presence in our American life.”

SOURCE

OLIVIA AND JOAN: THE LONGEST FEUD

Two years ago, amid the formal splendour of the Élysée Palace in Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy conferred France’s most prestigious accolade, the Légion d’honneur, on a little, silver-haired lady, then aged 94, with sparkling brown eyes and an impishly familiar smile. That bewitching smile and those amazing eyes once made Olivia de Havilland the queen of Hollywood and the winner of two Oscars. Today, she is the last surviving star of the most famous epic film ever brought to the screen, Gone With the Wind. Her daughter Gisele, and other members of her family, were at the Élysée to watch Miss de Havilland, a resident of Paris for almost 60 years, honoured.

But one member of her immediate family — and the one who has known her longer and better than anyone in this world — her only sibling, Joan Fontaine, then 92, herself an Oscar-winner of equally illustrious status as a legend of stage and screen, was conspicuous by her absence from the ceremony.

When the President placed the blood-red ribbon and star of the Légion d’honneur around Olivia’s neck, Joan was 6,000 miles away at her home in Carmel, California, studiously ignoring the occasion — just as she has ignored every aspect of her sister’s existence for decades.

These two formidable grandes dames of the screen have been at loggerheads for most of their lives. Both frankly confess that, even as children, they detested one another.

Of the two sisters, de Havilland was the first to become an actress; when Fontaine tried to follow her lead, their mother, who allegedly favored de Havilland, refused to let her use the family name. Subsequently, Fontaine was forced to invent a name, taking first Joan Burfield, and later Joan Fontaine. Biographer Charles Higham records that the sisters have always had an uneasy relationship, starting in early childhood when de Havilland would rip up the clothes Fontaine had to wear as hand-me-downs, forcing Fontaine to sew them back together. A large part of the resentment between the sisters allegedly stemmed from Fontaine's perception that de Havilland was their mother's favorite child.

Both de Havilland and Fontaine were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. Fontaine won that year for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion over de Havilland's performance in Hold Back the Dawn. Charles Higham states that Fontaine "felt guilty about winning given her lack of obsessive career drive...". Higham has described the events of the awards ceremony, stating that as Fontaine stepped forward to collect her award, she pointedly rejected de Havilland's attempts at congratulating her and that de Havilland was both offended and embarrassed by her behavior.

Several years later, de Havilland remembered the slight and exacted her own revenge by brushing past Fontaine, who was waiting with her hand extended, because de Havilland allegedly took offense at a comment Fontaine had made about de Havilland's husband. De Havilland's relationship with Fontaine continued to deteriorate after the two incidents. Charles Higham has stated that this was the near final straw for what became a lifelong feud, but the sisters did not completely stop speaking to each other until 1975. According to Fontaine, de Havilland did not invite her to a memorial service for their mother, who had recently died. De Havilland claims she informed Fontaine, but Fontaine brushed her off, claiming she was too busy to attend.

Charles Higham records that Fontaine has an estranged relationship with her own daughters as well, possibly because she discovered that they were secretly maintaining a relationship with de Havilland. Both sisters have refused to comment publicly about their feud and dysfunctional family relationships, though in an interview with John Kobal, Fontaine stated categorically that the so-called rivalry was a pure hoax, cooked up by the studio publicity hounds.

In a 1979 interview, Fontaine says the reason she stopped speaking with her sister was because Olivia wanted their mother (who was suffering from cancer) operated on at the age of 88. Joan also says that when their mother died, Olivia didn't even bother to phone to find out where she could be reached (Fontaine was on tour). Instead, Olivia sent a telegram, but it was delivered to Joan two weeks later at her next stop.

Whatever the reason, it does not look like Olivia DeHavilland and Joan Fontaine will ever mend the fences. This has to be one of the longest family feuds of all-time, and it is the stuff only Hollywood could dream up...

SOURCE

PAST OBITS: HELEN O'CONNELL

This is a new blog entry we are starting where we spotlight an older obituary from the past. So many of the great entertainers have left us, that it is a great opportunity to remember a forgotten star. This time around it is the obit for big band vocalist Helen O'Connell. This obit appeared in the New York Times on September 10, 1993...


Helen O'Connell Is Dead at 73; Big-Band Singer of 'Green Eyes'
By The Associated Press

Helen O'Connell, the big-band singer whose recordings of "Green Eyes" and other songs made her one of the most popular female vocalists in the nation in the early 1940's, died today at a hospice, her manager said. She was 73.

The cause was cancer, said the manager, Gloria Burke.

Miss O'Connell was one of the best-known female singers during the height of the swing era, when the big bands toured the nation.

She was born in Lima, Ohio, on May 23, 1920, and she left high school there to become a band singer. She was performing with the Larry Funk band at the Village Barn in New York City when she came to the attention of Jimmy Dorsey, who was looking for a vocalist. Her singing career took off in 1939 when she was paired with Bob Eberly on a Dorsey recording of "Green Eyes." That song, along with "Tangerine" and "Amapola," sold in the millions.

She also made popular songs like "Jim," "I Remember You," "Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry" and "When The Sun Comes Out."

In the 1950's, she worked with Dave Garroway on NBC's "Today Show." For nine years, she was hostess of the Miss Universe Pageant, and she was a television spokeswoman for Polaroid cameras for several years.


In 1978 and 1979, she toured the country in a highly successful concert presentation called "4 Girls 4," in which she appeared with the singers Rose Marie, Margaret Whiting and Rosemary Clooney.

This summer, she toured with a big-band show, performing for the last time at the Valley Forge Music Fair in Valley Forge, Pa., on Aug. 14. The tour's producer, Craig Hankenson of Tampa, Fla., said Miss O'Connell had to leave the tour just before it ended because she was experiencing chest pain. Miss O'Connell returned home to Orange County, Calif., and was admitted to a La Jolla hospital, where she underwent surgery on Aug. 27.

Miss O'Connell married Frank DeVol, a composer, arranger and conductor, in 1991. She had been married to Clifford Smith Jr., heir to a Boston investment fortune, from 1941 to 1951, and to Tom T. Chamales, a novelist, from 1957 until his death in a fire in 1960.

She is survived by her husband and four daughters...



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THE YEAR IN MOVIES: 1942

It is hard to believe that the year 1942 was 70 years ago. 1942 saw the country in its first full year in the war. Bing Crosby recorded "White Christmas" for the first time, and everyone was dancing to the sounds of the big bands. It was a tough year for society but a great year for movies and Hollywood...



Best Picture-winning Casablanca (1942), based on the play Everybody Comes to Rick's and set in 1941 war-time Morocco, premiered in New York. Its studio, Warner Bros., capitalized on the war-time events occurring (the Allied landings in N. Africa that mentioned the city). Altogether, its director Michael Curtiz made over 40 films in the decade of the 30s, and over 150 films in his entire career, from the silent era to the early 1960s.

Jacques Tourneur's moody and intelligent Cat People (1942), producer Val Lewton's first film at RKO, influenced future film-makers by showing how subtle and suggestive horror could be effectively generated.

The first of numerous Hollywood films to take up the U.S. cause of World War II was Wake Island (1942). It was Hollywood's first major World War II film, starring Brian Donlevy, William Bendix, and Robert Preston. The war film was followed by other morale-boosting feature films such as Flying Tigers.

Black actor Paul Robeson, who had starred in Show Boat (1936), said he wouldn't make any more films until there were better roles for blacks. His last film was Tales of Manhattan (1942).

Tweety Bird, originally pink-colored, debuted in Tale of Two Kitties, a spoof on the popular comedy team of Abbott and Costello. Tweety Bird's first cartoon appearance with lisping cat Sylvester was in Tweetie Pie (1947) -- it won an Oscar for animator Friz Freleng. This was the first Warner Brothers cartoon to win an Oscar!

During a War Bond promotional tour, 33 year-old popular star and actress Carole Lombard, Clark Gable's wife, was killed in a plane crash near Las Vegas, Nevada on January 16, 1942.

A fire in Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub took the life of 50 year-old B-western movie star Buck Jones after he sustained injuries. 492 individuals were victims of the deadly blaze.

Orson Welles directed his second motion picture, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), noted for dialogue that was realistically spoken.

The Hollywood Canteen was founded (by Bette Davis, John Garfield, and others) and opened its doors on Cahuenga Blvd. in greater Los Angeles (Hollywood) in the fall of 1942, to provide free entertainment (food, dancing, etc.) to servicemen by those in the industry. It operated for just over three years as a morale booster, during the war years, and was the impetus for the Warners' film Hollywood Canteen (1944), featuring lots of stars in cameo roles.

Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy teamed up for the first time in MGM's Woman of the Year (1942). It was the first of nine films in which Tracy and Hepburn starred together, stretching out a period of 25 years until their final film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences commenced with an award category for Best Documentary - Short Subject, won for the first time (in the 1942 awards ceremony) by the Canadian production Churchill's Island (1941).

Lena Horne was the first African-American woman to sign a long-term contract with a major studio (MGM) as a specialty performer, meaning that she was initially cast in parts and subplots (usually separate singing scenes) that could be edited out for showings in Southern theaters.



Warner Bros' nostalgic, shamelessly-patriotic, entertaining black and white musical biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) was released. It was the first time that a living US President (FDR in this case, played by Jack Young) was portrayed in a motion picture. For the first time in his entire career, James Cagney attended the premiere for one of his films - when it had its world premiere on Memorial Day, 1942 on Broadway. Rather than tickets for its opening night premiere, the studio sold war bonds and reportedly raised over $5 million for the war effort. It became the second highest grossing box-office hit of the year for Warners (after Desperate Journey (1942)). Cagney won his sole career Oscar, and became the first Best Actor Oscar winner to take home the Oscar for an appearance in a film musical, in his role as American music entertainer George M. Cohan. The film was one of the first computer-colorized films released by entrepreneur Ted Turner in 1985 (on George M. Cohan's alleged birthday July 4th - naturally!).

The war years had a distinct influence on Hollywood. The Office of War Information (OWI) stated that film makers should consider seven questions before producing a movie, including this one: "Will this picture help to win the war?" The War Production Board imposed a $5,000 limit on set construction. Wartime cloth restrictions were imposed, prohibiting cuffed trousers and pleats. Klieg-lit Hollywood premieres were prohibited. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hollywood turned out numerous anti-Japanese films, some of them quite racist, such as Fox's Little Tokyo, U.S.A.,which dealt with the controversial subject of Japanese internment. The OWI then cracked down on the artistic license of Hollywood beginning in 1943. The Office of Censorship prohibited the export of films that showed racial discrimination, depicted Americans as single-handedly winning the war, or painted our allies as imperialists.

And that was the year in movies 1942...