Gone With or Without fanfare

[JackFavell]

Oh gee. While Marion wasn't as exciting or fun as Lucy and Ethel, she was an integral part of the show, especially the Hollywood episodes. She was the one Lucy was always trying to impress, the Jones she was trying to keep up with. I'll miss Shirley Mitchell's myopic, cheery presence. Well, I guess I won't! because she'll still be with us in dvd's and reruns, until the end of time. Not bad for the third wheel. And I had no idea she was married to Jay Livingston or the connection to Nancy Olson.

[knitwit45]

image.jpg (12.76 KiB) Viewed 4327 times

[Lzcutter]

Character actor Al Ruscio has passed away.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Al Ruscio, an often-seen character actor who appeared on TV, in films and on stage for more than a half-century, died Tuesday, his daughter Elizabeth said. He was 89.

Ruscio played the new restaurant manager at Monk’s whom Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) accuses of employing only buxom women as waitresses (they turn out to be his daughters) in the 1993 Seinfeld episode “The Pilot”; a casino owner on Showgirls (1995); and an opera-loving grandfather on the late-1980s ABC drama Life Goes On, the first TV series to have a major character with Down syndrome.

In The Godfather: Part III, he plays crime boss Leo Cuneo and screams at Joe Mantegna’s character, “Joey Zaza, you son of a b****!”

Ruscio also played a foul-mouthed ex-cabbie on Steambath, an early series for pay-TV outlet Showtime; Bonnie Franklin’s dad in one episode of One Day at a Time; and Elder No. 4 on The X-Files.

Ruscio appeared on scores of other shows, including 77 Sunset Strip, Bonanza, Sea Hunt, Peter Gunn, The Untouchables, McCloud, Phyllis, Lou Grant, Shannon, Barney Miller, Falcon Quest, St. Elsewhere, Matlock, Hillstreet Blues, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, NYPD Blue and 7th Heaven.

He also acted in the soap operas Santa Barbara, Port Charles and Days of Our Lives.

His film résumé includes Fever Heat (1968), Any Which Way You Can (1980), The Hunter (1980), Jagged Edge (1985), Guilt by Suspicion (1991), The Silence of the Hams (1994) and The Phantom (1996).

A native of Salem, Mass., Ruscio moved to New York and trained for two years at the Neighborhood Playhouse School for the Theatre. He moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and that year appeared on TV’s Gunsmoke and then in the Rod Steiger film Al Capone (1959).

In the '60s, Ruscio created the drama department at the newly formed Midwestern College in Denison, Iowa. He then served as a professor of acting at the University of Windsor in Canada and as artistic director of the Academy of Dramatic Art at Oakland (Mich.) University. Over the years, he conducted workshops with his wife, actress Kate Williamson.

His book, So Therefore …: A Practical Guide for Actors, was published last year.

“Every scene or action or speech has a ‘so therefore.’ It is the goal, the ultimate statement of the character. You should know the so therefore as you begin your scene … The climax and the payoff is the ‘so therefore.’ ”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/a ... her-656177

[knitwit45]

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[Rita Hayworth]

Al Ruscio is always been my favorite television actor and I remembered him in the Pilot Episode of Seinfeld real well and others like Scarecrow (he was a hoot) and Mrs. King ... and the likes of so many television shows its shows how versatile he really is. A truly an amazing man, and one of my closest friend(s) who is currently lives in San Diego knew him quite well and he is very likable actor and I was informed by him this morning that he died. He has his autograph from the 1st Season from Seinfeld and a huge Seinfeld fan.

That's all I have to share about him.

[moira finnie]

Mickey Knox, an actor, screenwriter, film producer and novelist who wrote a memoir, The Good, the Bad and the Dolce Vita: The Adventures of an Actor in Hollywood, Paris and Rome that told of his long life, many friends, private triumphs and hard times (he was blacklisted during the McCarthy era), has died at age 91. His many appearances on screen include Boomerang! (1947), White Heat (1949), Any Number Can Play (1949) and City Across the River (1949). He worked with everyone from Kazan to Cagney to Gable to Brando to Pacino and many more. Born into extreme urban poverty, his well-written autobiography revealed a man with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge about the world and a desire to glimpse some justice during his lifetime. I hope he found peace and his family is comforted by the long life he relished with them. R.I.P.

[Western Guy]

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mickey for Videoscope magazine and speaking with him a number of times on the telephone. Two regrets is that during my eight months in Las Vegas almost a decade ago working with Dolores Fuller on her book I never accepted either Mickey or Marc Lawrence's invitation to drive into California to visit them. Never made it further than Glendora. But both fellas were true gentlemen and guys whom I could call my friends - even if that friendship was over many, many miles.

Mickey had been in poor health these last several years, living under the care of one of his daughters. So, yes Moira, I hope Mickey has found peace.

Kind of a weird interesting side note. Both Mickey and Al Ruscio played Dons assassinated by the Atlantic City helicopter assault in "THE GODFATHER, PART III".

Nice picture of Mickey, Moira. Thanks for posting.

[moira finnie]

You're welcome, Stone. At least you had a chance to communicate with this interesting individual. Is your interview from Videoscope available online? I haven't found it on their website yet, though there appear to be copies of the 2008 edition of the magazine that features your interview for sale there.

I have been interested in Mickey Knox since I started researching Helen Walker several years ago, but learned that he was not able to communicate due to illness by the time I wished to contact him.

One interesting story from Knox's memoir:
As neophyte actors, Mr. Knox had appeared with Helen Walker and Richard (then Nicholas) Conte in Samson Raphaelson's play, Jason on Broadway in 1942 before any of them were very well known. Knox described a harrowing scene when legendary stage director George Abbott eviscerated Conte's acting in front of the cast during rehearsal by dressing him down for imitating Burgess Meredith (Abbott had originally wanted him in the part). It was only the intervention of the playwright Raphaelson who went after the young man to reassure him and who helped him find his own way into the role that gave him the confidence to go on. Only later, did Knox come to believe that Abbot's scathing remarks shocked Conte into reassessing his approach to his part, which won him considerable critical attention. It sounded as though such directorial manipulation was par for the course for actors on stage and screen then and perhaps now. Both Walker, Conte, and others in the cast, including E.G. Marshall and Alexander Knox attracted the attention of the studios thanks to this play's high profile.

[Western Guy]

I don't think the interview is available online. Moira, but here's a link to a sorta excerpt that was featured in Filmmonthly online:

http://www.filmmonthly.com/Profiles/Art ... yKnox.html

Unfortunately, the Videoscope interview was cut back in length and a lot of good stuff was cut out.

Re: Jason. Mickey told he he got the distinct impression that Richard Conte did not particularly like him, considering him possibly as a threat to his own career. I always saw a kind of resemblance between the two actors. Mickey also mentioned that his best friend in Hollywood was Burt Lancaster, and this was because Burt did not look upon Mickey as a threat. Burt was a star, Mickey a supporting player and so the two could socialize without there being any career competition -- although had Mickey accepted the role in THE STEEL HELMET that Samuel Fuller wrote especially for him, Mickey may have become a major star. Mickey said that he turned down the part because he did not want to appear in any movie that, to him, glorified war. Mickey then said that he went home and slept well . . . until the movie came out, became a hit, and Mickey admitted to having some sleepless nights after that.

As Mickey's closest friend Norman Mailer observed: "The true tragedy is that we will never know if Mickey Knox might have become a star" - with his acting career being curtailed by that damned Blacklist.

Yet as Mickey told me, he really had no regrets. He enjoyed his years in Europe and maintained a philosophical attitude: "Being a movie star isn't necessarily the greatest thing in the world."

Mickey really was a great guy. Just sad that his final years were kind of rough.

[moira finnie]

Thanks for that link to the interview, Stone. Wish it were longer!

In Knox's book, there are several stories he tells about Burt Lancaster, including one where Burt assessed everyone's level of threat to him. Strangely, Lancaster did the same thing to Paul Picerni, who described the leading man's tendency to categorize people in his memoir, Steps to Stardom: My Story. I think Burt L. was often a very good actor, but he sure must have been one heckuva competitor 24/7. I bet that was exhausting to be around. Maybe that is one reason why Mickey believed that "Being a movie star isn't necessarily the greatest thing in the world."

I agree about the tension between Conte and Mickey Knox. As he described it in his book, Richard Conte had an aloof air; a quality that often makes him a bit unknowable in his films, and has always intrigued me since he was one of the first actors I was aware of as a kid who was clearly Italian, proud of it, and not someone who suffered fools gladly. Despite this or because of the inherent tension within Conte, his characters are often figures a viewer can't help rooting for, especially in films such as the wonderful Thieves Highway (1949), the less than wonderful (but fun) Ocean's Eleven (1960). In the latter he was the only character I gave a damn about.

Being Conte's understudy during Jason on Broadway and later working with him as dialogue coach in a film much later in both their careers may have contributed to their uneasy relationship. I bet the two of them were sometimes up for the same role, at least for a time.

Maybe the script for The Steel Helmet that Knox saw was different from the shooting script, but it certainly wasn't a "pro-war" film.

[Western Guy]

Moira, Mickey said that both he and Sam Fuller were drinking pretty good and Sam "read" him the script, pulling out all the stops and embellishing scenes, so under those conditions Mickey possibly may have interpreted the script as "glorifying" the war - or maybe it was not the shooting script. In any case, the finished film certainly didn't make me want to run out and enlist. A pretty gritty film that would likely have done wonders for Mickey's career. Instead, he turns up in blink-and-you'll-miss-him bits in "Vice Squad" and "The Naked Street".

Interesting about Richard Conte. Even Paul Picerni (who acted with Conte in "The Brothers Rico") said that Conte had a wary edge about him and Picerni found it difficult to "bond" with him, as it were.

But I, too, really enjoy Conte. Was there ever a more despicable gangster than the ones he played in "Cry of the City" and, especially, "The Big Combo"?

[JackFavell]

I like Conte in the early Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence, in which he allows us to see a little vulnerability.

[Lzcutter]

A sad day for lovers of Walt Disney and his legacy, his daughter, Diane Disney Miller, passed away a little while ago.

A full obit will be forthcoming.

[Sue Sue Applegate]

I am so sorry to hear of Diane Disney Miller's passing, Lynn. It was thanks to you that I was able to meet her at the Turner Classic Film Festival.

Stone, I enjoyed reading your reminiscences about Mickey Knox, and Moira, I thank you for that lovely photo, and your interesting questions.

Knitty, I loved Al Ruscio.

[Lzcutter]

As promised, the Diane Disney Miller obit from the LA Times- it's interesting to note that in LA the Concert Hall leads the obit and in SF the Walt Disney Family Museum leads the obit:

Walt Disney's name is on Los Angeles' world-famous concert hall, but it was a far less-known Disney who came from behind the scenes to ensure that architect Frank Gehry's vision for the building stayed intact.

Diane Disney Miller, Walt Disney's eldest daughter, had previously shunned the limelight along with other women in the family. "We were just three women, my mother, my sister and me," she said in a 2003 Los Angeles Times interview. "Housewives, if you will."

That's pretty much how the public knew her until 1997, when some of the city's most powerful figures came close to forcing out Gehry during a crucial planning phase of the hall. Miller used two powerful weapons — her name and her money — to keep Gehry on the job, and she didn't let up until she knew his position was safe.

Her husband, former studio President Ron Miller, could have told the dignitaries not to mess with her. Apprised of the "housewives" description, he countered, with a laugh: "If you like your housewives tougher than hell."

Diane Disney Miller, the only surviving child of Walt and Lillian Disney, died Tuesday at her home in the Napa Valley from complications of a fall there in September, according to family friend Richard Greene, who was the coauthor of a biography of her father. She was 79.

Miller grew up in Los Angeles, but in the mid-1980s, she and her husband moved north, living on the Napa estate where they operated Silverado Vineyards and in an apartment in San Francisco. She was involved in Bay Area arts organizations and was on the board of the San Francisco Symphony.

But it's likely she will be most remembered in the arts world for her role in building the Walt Disney Concert Hall in her native city. In September, not long before her fall, she chaired a gala commemorating the building's 10th anniversary.

Like many achievements in her life, she tied her work on the hall to her feelings for her father.

"I wanted something that would bear my father's name, that would come from his wealth but not be commercial," she said. "That would be just a wonderful thing for the city, for the spirit, for the soul.

"I think we achieved that."

Diane Marie Disney was born Dec. 18, 1933, in Los Angeles. The next day, The Times declared: "Mickey Mouse has a daughter."

It was at a time when the animated mouse was by far Walt Disney's most famous creation and the Disney studio was in Silver Lake. She grew up in the Los Feliz area and later, as her family's fortunes grew, in Holmby Hills.

Miller described her father, who died in 1966, as a workaholic, but on Sundays he would take her and her younger sister, Sharon, with him to the studio, where they would play. "We learned to ride bikes on that lot, learned to drive our cars in the parking lot," she said in a first-person account on a Disney company website.

He also took his daughters to Griffith Park, where they would ride the merry-go-round while he sat on a bench and watched. Walt Disney later said the experience gave him the idea of creating a park where families could enjoy attractions together.

Miller went to USC, where she planned to major in English. "I thought I might have liked to be a foreign correspondent," she said. But she met Ron Miller, a USC football star, and left school. They married in 1954 and eventually had seven children. In 1955, Disneyland opened, making her family name even more famous as the years went by.

"My dad loved his celebrity — well, he'd earned it," Miller said in 1997. "I don't like living in the wake of his celebrity. It's hard on my children, people are always calling them up for Disneyland tickets."

For more of the obit, go here: http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me ... z2l8rL2enN

She thoroughly believed in keeping her father's legacy relevant as the baby boomers who grew up with Walt aged and the generations that have followed have no memory of him and often think he was just a fictional figure created by the studio to sell their image.

The winery in Napa is very nice and the WDFMuseum in SF is worth seeing if you find yourself in northern California. She was a terrific lady to work for and my condolences to her family.