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gaijinmark
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12121 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country: |
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bmwracer
Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 125547 Location: Juri-chan's speed dial Country: |
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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gaijinmark wrote: | Actor Tony Curtis dies at 85 |
Condolences to his friends and family.
Some of my favorite Curtis films: Some Like It Hot, The Great Impostor, The Great Race, The Defiant Ones...
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Sengo
Joined: 29 Aug 2009 Posts: 450 Location: United States Country: |
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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bmwracer wrote: |
Condolences to his friends and family.
Some of my favorite Curtis films: Some Like It Hot, The Great Impostor, The Great Race, The Defiant Ones... |
I thought he was a very charismatic actor. I enjoyed those films, too.
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gaijinmark
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12121 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country: |
Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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7th-key
Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 1172 Location: Germany Country: |
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bmwracer
Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 125547 Location: Juri-chan's speed dial Country: |
Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2010 12:11 am Post subject: |
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7th-key wrote: | I liked his roles since I was a kid, always a bit of a scoundrel on the outside . |
Yup, a lot of his characters seemed to have ulterior motives.
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shin2
Joined: 21 Jul 2004 Posts: 1344
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2010 8:50 am Post subject: |
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bmwracer wrote: |
Some of my favorite Curtis films: Some Like It Hot, The Great Impostor, The Great Race, The Defiant Ones... |
Good films (well, Some Like it Hot is a great film).
Other Tony Curtis films I liked: Spartacus (another great film imo), The Vikings, The Black Shield of Falworth.
And who could forget The Bad News Bears Go to Japan
(I still find it somewhat jarring that Wakayama Tomisaburo was in this)
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bmwracer
Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 125547 Location: Juri-chan's speed dial Country: |
Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2010 11:21 am Post subject: |
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shin2 wrote: | The Black Shield of Falworth. |
Ah yes, I forgot that one... And it's on DVD, too.
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niknik
Joined: 05 Jan 2010 Posts: 544
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Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 7:34 am Post subject: |
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Bummer.....
Barbara Billingsley, Beaver Cleaver's TV mom, dies
Associated Press | Posted: Saturday, October 16, 2010 2:56 pm
Barbara Billingsley, who gained supermom status for her gentle portrayal of June Cleaver, the warm, supportive mother of a pair of precocious boys in "Leave it to Beaver," died Saturday. She was 94.
Billingsley, who had suffered from a rheumatoid disease, died at her home in Santa Monica, said family spokeswoman Judy Twersky.
When the show debuted in 1957, Jerry Mathers, who played Beaver, was 9, and Tony Dow, who portrayed Wally, was 12. Billingsley's character, the perfect stay-at-home 1950s mom, was always there to gently but firmly nurture both through the ups and downs of childhood.
Beaver, meanwhile, was a typical American boy whose adventures landed him in one comical crisis after another.
Billingsley's own two sons said she was pretty much the image of June Cleaver in real life, although the actress disagreed.
"She was every bit as nurturing, classy, and lovely as 'June Cleaver' and we were so proud to share her with the world," her son Glenn Billingsley said Saturday.
She did acknowledge that she may have become more like June as the series progressed.
"I think what happens is that the writers start writing about you as well as the character they created," she once said. "So you become sort of all mixed up, I think."
A wholesome beauty with a lithe figure, Billingsley began acting in her elementary school's plays and soon discovered she wanted to do nothing else.
Although her beauty and figure won her numerous roles in movies from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, she failed to obtain star status until "Leave it to Beaver," a show that she almost passed on.
"I was going to do another series with Buddy Ebsen for the same producers, but somehow it didn't materialize," she told The Associated Press in 1994. "A couple of months later I got a call to go to the studio to do this pilot show. And it was `Beaver.'"
Decades later, she expressed surprise at the lasting affection people had for the show.
"We knew we were making a good show, because it was so well written," she said. "But we had no idea what was ahead. People still talk about it and write letters, telling how much they watch it today with their children and grandchildren."
After "Leave it to Beaver" left the air in 1963 Billingsley largely disappeared from public view for several years.
She resurfaced in 1980 in a hilarious cameo in "Airplane!" playing a demur elderly passenger not unlike June Cleaver.
When flight attendants were unable to communicate with a pair of jive-talking hipsters, Billingsley's character volunteered to translate, saying "I speak jive." The three then engage in a raucous street-slang conversation.
"No chance they would have cast me for that if I hadn't been June Cleaver," she once said.
She returned as June Cleaver in a 1983 TV movie, "Still the Beaver," that costarred Mathers and Dow and portrayed a much darker side of Beaver's life.
In his mid-30s, Beaver was unemployed, unable to communicate with his own sons and going through a divorce. Wally, a successful lawyer, was handling the divorce, and June was at a loss to help her son through the transition.
"Ward, what would you do?" she asked at the site of her husband's grave. (Hugh Beaumont, who played Ward Cleaver, had died in 1982.)
The movie revived interest in the Cleaver family, and the Disney Channel launched "The New Leave It to Beaver" in 1985.
The series took a more hopeful view of the Cleavers, with Beaver winning custody of his two sons and all three moving in with June.
In 1997 Universal made a "Leave it to Beaver" theatrical film with a new generation of actors. Billingsley returned for a cameo, however, as Aunt Martha.
"America's favorite mother is now gone," Dow said in a statement Saturday. "I feel very fortunate to have been her "son" for 11 years. We were wonderful friends and I will miss her very much."
In later years she appeared from time to time in such TV series as "Murphy Brown," "Empty Nest" and "Baby Boom" and had a memorable comic turn opposite fellow TV moms June Lockhart of "Lassie" and Isabel Sanford of "The Jeffersons" on the "Roseanne" show.
"Now some people, they just associate you with that one role (June Cleaver), and it makes it hard to do other things," she once said. "But as far as I'm concerned, it's been an honor."
In real life, fate was not as gentle to Billingsley as it had been to June and her family.
Born Barbara Lillian Combes in Los Angeles on Dec. 22, 1915, she was raised by her mother after her parents divorced. She and her first husband, Glenn Billingsley, divorced when her sons were just 2 and 4.
Her second husband, director Roy Kellino, died of a heart attack after three years of marriage and just months before she landed the "Leave it to Beaver" role.
She married physician Bill Mortenson in 1959 and they remained wed until his death in 1981.
Twersky said Billingsley's survivors include her sons, a stepson and numerous grandchildren.
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bmwracer
Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 125547 Location: Juri-chan's speed dial Country: |
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 11:54 am Post subject: |
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niknik wrote: | Barbara Billingsley, Beaver Cleaver's TV mom, dies
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She was the quintessential 50's mom.
Condolences to her friends and family.
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bmwracer
Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 125547 Location: Juri-chan's speed dial Country: |
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bmwracer
Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 125547 Location: Juri-chan's speed dial Country: |
Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 11:41 am Post subject: |
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James MacArthur dies at 72; actor played 'Danno' on 'Hawaii Five-0'
He also appeared in the classic Disney film 'Swiss Family Robinson' and gave Hayley Mills her first screen kiss in 'The Truth About Spring.'
By Valerie J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times
October 29, 2010
James MacArthur, an actor best known for portraying Det. Danny "Danno" Williams on the original " Hawaii Five-0," the TV series that turned "Book 'em, Danno" into a national catchphrase, has died. He was 72.
MacArthur, who also appeared in the classic Disney film "Swiss Family Robinson," died of natural causes Thursday in Florida, said his agent, Richard Lewis.
From 1968 to 1979, MacArthur appeared on "Hawaii Five-0" as the chief assistant to Det. Steve McGarrett, played by Jack Lord, who often ended episodes of the police drama by uttering the famous line.
"He said 'book him' to others in the cast, but I guess he said it to me the most," MacArthur told Florida's Bradenton Herald in 2007. "It wasn't anything we really thought about at first. But the phrase just took off and caught the public's imagination."
A year before "Hawaii Five-0" ended its run in 1980, MacArthur left the hit show a wealthy man. He had invested his earnings, often in Hawaiian real estate, and only occasionally appeared on television after that.
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niknik
Joined: 05 Jan 2010 Posts: 544
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 11:16 am Post subject: |
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hitomi #1
Joined: 14 Feb 2009 Posts: 6884 Location: Syracuse, NY Country: |
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bmwracer
Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 125547 Location: Juri-chan's speed dial Country: |
Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:36 am Post subject: |
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shin2 wrote: | Bud Greenspan, the documentary filmmaker known primarily for his well crafted films on all things Olympics, passed away. It's a shame that most of his work is not out on DVD and available for general viewing. Probably more than anyone else, he was able to capture visually and emotionally the history, soul, and character of the Olympic games and the Olympic athletes. He also did documentaries on non-Olympic sports as well. I remember one documentary where he looked at the national sports heroes of five or six countries; included was a profile on dai yokuzuna Taiho, arguably the greatest rikishi in sumo history. His films were absolute gems--both informative and moving. |
I saw his obit the other day... His Olympiad series is terrific: I have it on VHS tape and I transferred it to DVD a while back.
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shin2
Joined: 21 Jul 2004 Posts: 1344
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Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 11:08 pm Post subject: |
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bmwracer wrote: |
I saw his obit the other day... His Olympiad series is terrific: I have it on VHS tape and I transferred it to DVD a while back. |
Lucky you. I have several of his documentaries on VHS that I taped off of TV broadcasts many years ago. Great stuff. It was through Greenspan's films that I learned about athletes like Paavo Nurmi, Fanny Blankers-Koen, and Abebe Bikila--Olympic immortals whose names and accomplishments are, sadly, unknown to most people nowadays.
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