Gone With or Without fanfare

Discussion of programming on TCM.
User avatar
Professional Tourist
Posts: 1671
Joined: March 1st, 2009, 7:12 pm
Location: NYC

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Professional Tourist »

kingrat wrote:James Rebhorn was one of those actors whose face was instantly recognizable [. . .] I first saw him on Guiding Light as an evil guy who molested his stepdaughter.
Me too, I've always remembered him from that role. He was very good; sorry to know he passed so young. :(
User avatar
Lomm
Administrator
Posts: 719
Joined: September 5th, 2013, 9:14 am

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Lomm »

Rebhorn was one of my ultimate "oh, that guy" character actors. Seemed to pop up everywhere, and I always enjoyed his performance. RIP
User avatar
Lzcutter
Administrator
Posts: 3149
Joined: April 12th, 2007, 6:50 pm
Location: Lake Balboa and the City of Angels!
Contact:

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Lzcutter »

The man who helped create the Batman tv series and wrote The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor and many others has died- Lorenzo Semple, Jr. was 91.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Lorenzo Semple Jr., the creator of the campily classic Batman TV series who went on to craft such big-screen paranoid thrillers as The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor -- though he would be replaced on both films -- has died. He turned 91 on Thursday.

The screenwriter died Friday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, his daughter Maria Semple -- the novelist and Emmy-nominated comedy writer-producer who has worked on such series as Mad About You, Suddenly Susan and Arrested Development -- told Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter.

Semple’s résumé also includes the Steve McQueen-Dustin Hoffman escape tale Papillon (1973); Paul Newman’s Harper sequel The Drowning Pool (1975); Dino De Laurentiis’ King Kong (1976) starring Jessica Lange; and the rogue James Bond movie Never Say Never Again (1983).

Most recently, Semple and Marcia Nasatir, a former studio executive, producer and agent, teamed for Reel Geezers, an R-rated YouTube series that saw the Hollywood octogenarians bicker as they reviewed movies.

“We had such fun doing it,” Nasatir said. “He was a wonderful, smart, funny guy and a great friend.”

Semple, who was hired by producer (and eventual Batman narrator) William Dozier to create the superhero show for 20th Century Fox Television and ABC, said he always envisioned the series as a comedy, albeit one played with a straight face.

Semple wrote only the first four episodes, but he served as a script or story consultant on every other installment. He also penned the show’s “bible” for the other writers. (One rule: Batman should never break the law, not even to park in a no-parking zone during a crime-fighting emergency.)

Semple came up with the idea for interspersing the show’s fight scenes with exploding and colorful Pow! Zap! and Kapow! graphics; found the Riddler’s riddles in books popular with third-graders; and named every device the Bat-this or the Bat-that. For Robin’s “Holy (Fill in the Blank!),” he riffed off a similar phrase used by an elderly character in the Tom Swift books.

For more: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/l ... tor-675354
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

Avatar-Warner Bros Water Tower
RedRiver
Posts: 4200
Joined: July 28th, 2011, 9:42 am

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by RedRiver »

Holy obituary!
User avatar
Rita Hayworth
Posts: 10068
Joined: February 6th, 2011, 4:01 pm

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Rita Hayworth »

I met Leonard once at a Comic Book Convention along with Adam West and Burt Ward and he was a great man and a wonderful human being that brought life to Batman's sagging Comic Book sales and gave Bob Kane's hope and a sudden revival of the Caped Crusader. He was friendly to all his Bat Fans everywhere!
User avatar
Nick
Posts: 59
Joined: May 16th, 2013, 8:48 pm
Location: Stockholm

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Nick »

According to Wikipedia, 100-year old dancer Marc Platt has died. Is this true?
User avatar
Rita Hayworth
Posts: 10068
Joined: February 6th, 2011, 4:01 pm

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Rita Hayworth »

Nick wrote:According to Wikipedia, 100-year old dancer Marc Platt has died. Is this true?

Yes, Nick ... He died on March 29th and I really do not know the nature of his death at all. He was a great friend of Rita Hayworth and appeared in two of Rita's films ... Tonight and Every Night (1945) as Tommy Lawson and Down to Earth (1947) as Eddie.
User avatar
Jezebel38
Posts: 376
Joined: July 15th, 2007, 3:45 pm
Location: San Jose, CA

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Jezebel38 »

Rita Hayworth wrote:
Nick wrote:According to Wikipedia, 100-year old dancer Marc Platt has died. Is this true?

Yes, Nick ... He died on March 29th and I really do not know the nature of his death at all. He was a great friend of Rita Hayworth and appeared in two of Rita's films ... Tonight and Every Night (1945) as Tommy Lawson and Down to Earth (1947) as Eddie.

I'm sorry to hear this - he was a favorite and I wish he had appeared in more films. Here is an obit from the SF Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/D ... 363857.php

Marc Platt, a renown dancer of stage and screen and one of the last remaining members of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, died Saturday in Marin, his daughter Donna Platt said. He was 100.

Mr. Platt, whose reminiscences about the company are documented in the 2005 movie "Ballet Russe," is perhaps best remembered as the original Dream Curly in the 1943 Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" and as Daniel Pontipee, the fourth brother in Stanley Donen's 1954 musical film "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."

While with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Mr. Platt also choreographed the 1939 production of Rodgers' "Ghost Town." He left the company in 1942 to pursue a career on Broadway, where he was chosen by Agnes de Mille to originate the romantic dream ballet sequence in "Oklahoma!"

For many years Mr. Platt continued to perform in stage and then in movies, dancing with Rita Hayworth in "Tonight and Every Night," and starring as Junior Casady in the 1946 film "Tars and Spars," before landing the role of one of the sprightly and dashing brothers in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." Mr. Platt also can be seen as one of Curly's friends in the 1955 film adaptation of "Oklahoma!"

Marcel LePlat was born on Dec. 2, 1913, in Pasadena. In the 1920s, his family moved to Seattle, where his early dance training took place under Mary Ann Wells. It was Wells who advised the young man to audition for the renowned Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, then led by Colonel Wassily De Basil. Choreographer Leonide Massine hired the good-looking tall red-headed American and changed his name to Marc Platoff, to match the "Russianized" image of the company. The energetic, lanky young dancer would tour with that company until Massine founded his own offshoot of the Ballet Russe with Rene Blum in 1938, and Platt became a founding member of the new company.

During a tour of "Kiss Me Kate," he met Jean Goodall, whom he would later marry in 1951 and with whom he has two children. Goodall, who co-directed a dance school in Florida with her husband for many years, died in 1994.

In the late '50s and early '60s, Mr. Platt appeared on television and also the cabaret stage. In 1962, he was appointed director of the Radio City Music Hall ballet company in New York.

Ever the irrepressible character and a passionate dance artist throughout his life, Mr. Platt continued to perform well into his 90s, appearing in Marin Dance Theater's "Nutcracker" as the Toymaker.

As he told The Chronicle last December on the occasion of his hundredth birthday, "Always do what you love for as long as you can. I was a dancer and I'm always a dancer."

Mr. Platt is survived by his son Ted LePlat, from his marriage to Eleanor Marra; and from his marriage to Goodall, his son Michael and daughter, Donna and her partner, Stewart Munson, as well as granddaughter Casey Price. A memorial for Mr. Platt is pending.
User avatar
moira finnie
Administrator
Posts: 8024
Joined: April 9th, 2007, 6:34 pm
Location: Earth
Contact:

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by moira finnie »

Thank you, Nick, Erik and Jez for shining a spotlight on Mr. Platt. I just put the documentary Ballets Russes (2005) on hold at my library. I had seen a few moments of this some time ago and hoped to see the whole thing eventually. Naturally, I forgot! Marc Platt sounds as though he was a remarkable artist and individual.
Avatar: Frank McHugh (1898-1981)

The Skeins
TCM Movie Morlocks
User avatar
Nick
Posts: 59
Joined: May 16th, 2013, 8:48 pm
Location: Stockholm

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Nick »

Eddie Lawrence (1919-2014)
Eddie Lawrence Dies at 95; Comedy’s ‘Old Philosopher’

Eddie Lawrence, Comedian, Actor and Pitchman, Is Dead at 95

By WILLIAM YARDLEYMARCH 30, 2014

When Eddie Lawrence first performed his new comedy routine for his agent and a few entertainment executives, they told him that they loved it but that it was too clever for most people to understand. Mr. Lawrence had more faith in his audience.

He began the routine in a nasally whimper, a voice he later described as “sort of a crying Jolson.”

“Hiya, folks,” he said. “You say you lost your job today? You say it’s 4 a.m. and your kids ain’t come home from school yet? You say your wife went out for a corned beef sandwich last weekend — the corned beef sandwich came back but she didn’t? You say your furniture’s out all over the sidewalk cause you can’t pay the rent and you got chapped lips and paper cuts and your feet’s all swollen up and blistered from pounding the pavement looking for work? Is that’s what’s troubling you, fella?” Then, as banal background music gave way to a marching band, Mr. Lawrence abandoned the whimper for a bellow.

“Lift your head up high!” he thundered. “Take a walk in the sun with that dignity and stick-to-it-iveness, and you’ll show the world, you’ll show them where to get off. You’ll never give up, never give up, never give up — that ship!”

And so was born “the Old Philosopher,” a character and routine that became Mr. Lawrence’s bread and butter. Mr. Lawrence, who died on Tuesday in Manhattan at 95, structured the routine like a song, alternating tales of his fictional victims’ strange troubles with his clichéd refrain to carry on.

Released in 1956 as a three-minute single, “The Old Philosopher” rose into the Top 40 of the Billboard charts. Decades later, it continued to provide Mr. Lawrence (and some imitators) with a flexible framework for comic sketches, commercials and many television appearances. Many people became familiar with the routine, or variations on it, even if they did not know Mr. Lawrence by name. But it brought him new opportunities. He worked as a lyricist, pitchman, actor, writer and director. In the 1930s, he performed in variety shows at the Roxy Theater. In the Army in World War II, he was a disc jockey. Soon after the war, he did impersonations on radio, including on a show with the actor John Marley, and he began recording albums of comedy routines in the 1950s, many of which included versions of “The Old Philosopher.”

He became a regular on “The Steve Allen Show” and appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” In the 1980s, he adapted “The Old Philosopher” for commercials for the Claridge Hotel Casino in Atlantic City.

Decades earlier, he appeared off Broadway in “The Threepenny Opera” and had a prominent role on Broadway as a bookie in “Bells Are Ringing.”

In 1965, Mr. Lawrence wrote the lyrics for what became something of a pop standard, “I’ll Never Go There Anymore.” Stephen Sondheim once listed it among songs he wished he had written, but it was also linked to one of Mr. Lawrence’s most frustrating experiences, the 1965 musical “Kelly.” Inspired by the story of Steve Brodie, who supposedly survived jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886, the show became the biggest flop Broadway had ever seen at the time.

Mr. Lawrence wrote the book and the lyrics, and Moose Charlap composed the music. It was a labor of love for both of them, intended as a nuanced, unconventional story that reflected their serious artistic ambitions. But after producers decided to make substantial changes, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Charlap sued, trying to stop the production from going forward. The cost ballooned from $450,000 to $650,000, considered exorbitant at the time.

The show opened on Broadway on Feb. 6, and closed after that one performance.

The experience was a lifelong sore point for Mr. Lawrence. He was pleased many years later when a concert version of “Kelly,” as originally written, was produced by the York Theater Company, with Brian d’Arcy James in the lead role.

Eddie Lawrence was born Lawrence Eisler on March 2, 1919, in New York, the oldest of two brothers. His father, Benjamin, was a banker, and his mother, the former Bess Garbowsky, was a garment worker. He graduated from Boys High School in Brooklyn and he later studied art at Brooklyn College, where he graduated in 1940.

After the war, he used the G.I. Bill to study painting in Paris with Fernand Léger. Mr. Lawrence painted throughout his life. He exhibited in galleries and signed his works Lawrence Eisler.

His survivors include his wife, the former Marilyn White, and his son, Garrett Eisler, who confirmed his father’s death.

Mr. Lawrence sometimes said no when asked to perform his signature routine to pitch products.

When that happened, it was not unusual for him to later hear an imitator on the radio, hawking whatever it was he had decided against pitching. But he often said yes. In 1974, he was surprised to get a call from John Lennon. Mr. Lennon had produced a record by Harry Nilsson and he asked Mr. Lawrence to do a promotional riff for the record. He gave Mr. Lawrence creative control.

“Hiya, pussy cat,” Mr. Lawrence said in the 30-second spot. “You say you opened up a bicycle wash and the first six customers drowned, and they picked you up in the wax museum for trying to score with Marie Antoinette? Is that what’s got you down, pussy cat? Well, rise up, get yourself Harry Nilsson’s new album, ‘Pussy Cats,’ produced by John Lennon. Nilsson’s latest — ‘Pussy Cats.’ On RCA records and tapes. Meow, and purr.”
User avatar
JackFavell
Posts: 11926
Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by JackFavell »

I recognized the routine, but not his name. Lots of commercials from when I was growing up used his pitch.

Gosh, I had no idea how interesting Mr. Lawrence's life was.

R.I.P.
RedRiver
Posts: 4200
Joined: July 28th, 2011, 9:42 am

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by RedRiver »

This is fascinating! I never ONCE heard of this man or his act. When I was very young, there were some comedy bits I heard my parents talk about. But this wasn't one of them. My best to his family.
User avatar
CharlieT
Posts: 403
Joined: May 7th, 2007, 8:28 pm
Location: Warren G. Harding's hometown

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by CharlieT »

I've got a 45 record by The Old Philosopher made for Christmas that Mom and Dad bought for me and my siblings around 1957 when we got a new record player for Christmas. We loved that disc! I brought it to our Christmas Eve family celebration a few years ago and everyone got a chance to revisit our childhood years again. That was the same record player and Christmas that introduced me to the music of Glenn Miller. Great year! :D

Here are both sides of that 45:



"I'm at my most serious when I'm joking." - Dudley

Don't sweat the petty things - don't pet the sweaty things.
User avatar
Nick
Posts: 59
Joined: May 16th, 2013, 8:48 pm
Location: Stockholm

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Nick »

George Bookasta (1917-2014) has died.
George Bookasta, Former Child Actor, Dies at 96
4:54 PM PDT 4/3/2014 by Mike Barnes

Charlie Chaplin signed him up, and he appeared in films with such stars as Mary Pickford, Humphrey Bogart, Rosalind Russell and Gary Cooper.

George Bookasta, a child actor who was signed to a United Artists contract by Charlie Chaplin and later worked alongside Mary Pickford, Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper, has died. He was 96.

Bookasta, who later directed episodes of such TV series as Bachelor Father and Have Gun -- Will Travel, died March 26 near his home in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where he was recovering from pneumonia, said his son Gary -- who founded the radio stations KROQ AM and FM in Los Angeles in 1972.

As a toddler, Bookasta was wearing a mustache, a bowler and a "Little Tramp" outfit on the stage of Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles when he was spotted by Chaplin. The comedy star brought him to United Artists, the studio he had launched a few years earlier with Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith.

Bookasta made his film debut at age 6 in Ernst Lubitsch's silent film Rosita (1923), starring Pickford, then followed with another Pickford movie, Little Annie Rooney (1925).

His most memorable performance was in 1930, playing Spotty in Henry King's drama Hell Harbor, starring Lupe Velez and Jean Hersholt.

"The whole time I was [at UA], Charlie Chaplin only looked at me, he never spoke to me," Bookasta told The Albany Times-Union in a 2004 interview. "I loved his films, of course, but outside of that, he was kind of a snob. I saw him 30 years later getting a shave at a Beverly Hills barber. I wanted to go up to him and say, 'You don't remember me, do you?' "

During the filming of Sergeant York (1941), starring Cooper in his first Oscar-winning role, Bookasta's wife -- Laura Williams of the singing Williams Sisters -- gave birth to the couple's first child, and Cooper presented them with their first birthday gift. They named their son Gary in his honor.

Bookasta also appeared in uncredited roles in such films as It Had to Happen (1936) with George Raft and Rosalind Russell; The Great O'Malley (1937), starring Bogart and Pat O'Brien; Busby Berkeley's Forty Little Mothers (1940), with Eddie Cantor; That Night in Rio (1941), starring Don Ameche and Alice Faye; The Chocolate Soldier (1941) with Nelson Eddy; and George Sidney's The Red Danube (1949).

In the 1950s, Bookasta developed TV Time, believed to be the nation's first weekly TV log/magazine, and directed for shows such as the NBC variety program The Colgate Comedy Hour.

Bookasta was born in Kansas City, Mo., on July 14, 1917. His parents were actors; his father, E.H. (Herman) Bookasta, rode an elephant into Baghdad in the legendary action movie The Thief of Baghdad (1924) as a stand-in for Fairbanks.

Bookasta attended Hollywood High School, where he starred on the track team and played baseball. He was wounded in France while serving in World War II, and when he returned to the U.S., he attended Loyola University.

He later led a big band orchestra that headlined the Hollywood club Cafe de Paris.

In addition to Gary, survivors include his other sons Michael, who played boxer Rocky Graziano as a boy in the Paul Newman film Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and Petur; and grandson Randy Bookasta, who is vp industry relations and content development with SpinMedia. Randy's wife is Liz Morentin, vp corporate communications and publicity at Dick Clark Productions.

A Mass is set for 10 a.m. Friday at St. Clements Church in Saratoga Springs, followed by a burial service at the Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery.
User avatar
Lzcutter
Administrator
Posts: 3149
Joined: April 12th, 2007, 6:50 pm
Location: Lake Balboa and the City of Angels!
Contact:

Re: Gone With or Without fanfare

Post by Lzcutter »

From co-starring with Gable and Tracy to singing and dancing with Judy, Mickey Rooney became the All American teen in the Andy Hardy series. After that, his career continued for another seventy years and included more than his fair share of comebacks.

It all came to an end today when he passed away at 93.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Mickey Rooney, the pint-sized ball of energy who starred as Andy Hardy, America’s boy next door, in 16 films for MGM — merely one highlight in an irrepressible and unimaginable nine-decade career in show business — has died, TMZ reported. He was 93.

TMZ reported that Rooney, who had been "in ill health for quite some time," died Sunday. At the time of his death, he was working on a film called The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

From childhood stardom through two honorary Academy Awards, four Oscar nominations and one Emmy Award, Rooney was a phenom, one of the most remarkable and popular entertainers of the 20th century. With movie appearances stretching from 1926 through 2013, his 87-year cinematic career matches seldom-used actress Carla Laemmle’s as the longest in Hollywood history.

“American’s Most Lovable Munchkin” landed on the cover of Time magazine in March 1940 -- rare for any actor at the time -- and in 1941 was the biggest ticket-selling star for the third straight year, ranking ahead of such icons as Clark Gable, Bob Hope, Gene Autry, Bette Davis and Abbott & Costello.

At age 18, Rooney received a special Juvenile Academy Award for his performance as Whitey Marsh opposite Spencer Tracy in Boys Town (1938), and 45 years later he was presented with an Honorary Oscar “in recognition of his 50 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances.”

The Brooklyn-born son of vaudeville entertainers sang, danced, cracked wise and played several instruments, and he composed songs that were popular with Big Band orchestras back in the day. With his career on the wane, he turned things around by playing opposite Ann Miller in Broadway’s Sugar Babies, starring in more than 1,200 performances of the burlesque hit and receiving a Tony nomination in 1980.

“When I open a refrigerator door and the light goes on, I want to perform,” he said in one of his often-told jokes.

Rooney earned Oscar nominations for putting on a show with frequent co-star Judy Garland in the Busby Berkeley musical Babes in Arms (1939); as a teenager at home feeling the effects of World War II in The Human Comedy (1943); as a soldier who runs a memorable crap game across Italy in The Bold and the Brave (1956); and as a retired jockey turned horse trainer in The Black Stallion (1979), another milestone for him on the comeback trail.

Rooney made more than 200 films, and he also received notice for his work as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935); in the family adventure Captains Courageous (1937); as the title character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939); as a drifter in National Velvet (1944) opposite teenager Elizabeth Taylor; as a Navy man in the James Michener adaptation The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954); as Audrey Hepburn’s bucktoothed Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961); and as Anthony Quinn’s trainer and cutman in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962).

He earned his Emmy Award for his portrayal of a mentally ill man who emerges from an institution and finds love for the first time in the emotional 1981 CBS telefilm Bill.
Another incredible Rooney achievement: He was married eight times. His wives were Hollywood bombshell and future Mrs. Frank Sinatra Ava Gardner (1942-43); Alabama beauty queen and singer Betty Jane Phillips (1944-48); actress Martha Vickers (1949-51); actress-model Elaine Devry (1952-58); starlet Barbara Ann Thompson (1958 until her 1966 murder by her jealous lover in the Rooney’s Brentwood home); writer Marge Lane (1966-67); secretary Carolyn Hockett (1969-75); and actress-singer Jan Chamberlin, whom he wed in 1978. She survives him.

For more; http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/m ... tor-694041
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

Avatar-Warner Bros Water Tower
Post Reply