As promised, and long delayed, here are some more glamorous portraits of Barbara Stanwyck. As I was working on these, I couldn’t help wondering why we no longer see beautiful portraits of movie stars. How can we be satisfied with paparazzi shots of stars in sweatpants at the corner market? I don’t want to see beautiful people caught looking their worst. Bring back dazzle, photography as art, and great lighting!
A friend sent me a vintage fan magazine from July, 1963. She knows me so well! Every page is a treat, even the back pages, with ads for everything from toasters to suppositories. I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite articles and ads.
The cover features Connie Stevens and Donna Douglas
This issue doesn’t have any articles about my current favorite, Robert Fuller, but western actor James Drury gets a page.
This photo of Max Baer drinking eggnog (left) freaks me out.
Lists of stars from the past always fascinate me. I also love how all the photos are FREE, but be sure to include 10 cents for each one, to cover mailing and handling costs! I looked it up, and postage per ounce in 1963 was 5 cents. That means someone who ordered 25 prints was paying enough to ship over three pounds. Either the photos were really big, really heavy, or not very free after all. And yet, I wish I could still order some now.
When I first began this blog, I wrote about being an extra for a location shoot here in San Francisco. It was for the TV series Party of Five. I was in London when “my” episode was broadcast, and the later seasons of the series have not yet been released on DVD. It’s taken fifteen years, but today I finally got to see my big moment onscreen. It’s season four, episode 6: Immediate Family, which aired on October 29, 1997. I walked behind Julia (Neve Campbell) and Griffin (Jeremy London) as they strolled through Alamo Square. Here’s the scene, followed by a slow motion clip of my walk through. I only know it’s me because of the hat I was wearing. Such exciting stuff!
Here’s the photo I took of my friend and Jeremy London at the Legion of Honor the day before, where we watched another scene being filmed. That night in Alamo Square, once we were done filming, we got London to autograph her copy of the photo. We didn’t want to bother him too much, so mine isn’t signed.
So, my Hollywood career ended almost as soon as it began, with a couple of seconds of actual screen time in a dimly lit park on a chilly San Francisco night. It was fun while it lasted.
When I was a kid, I adored the Disney movie Johnny Tremain (1957), as well as the book by Esther Forbes. I recently watched the film again to see how it held up. Hal Stalmaster (Johnny) and Richard Beymer (Rab) look achingly young to me now, and the pancake makeup of the period is very obvious on a modern screen. Still, watching the movie brought back lots of memories, and it was fun to make screencaptures. Since these days everything seems to relate the western Laramie, I have to mention that Luana Patten (Priscilla) was later married to John Smith.
Another year has slipped away, and here I sit, reflecting back on what entertained me in 2012. I always start my wrap up by going back to the beginning of the year, to see how my interests have changed. I began the year dividing my time between British stuff and vintage television shows…and that’s exactly where I find myself now. Only the faces have changed!
Best Books: Might as well get the embarrassment out of the way first. Normally I read a couple of books a week, but I went 8 months out of the last 12 without finishing a single book! Oh, the shame. I could blame my eyes, since I need new glasses, but the real truth is that I spend too much time online. Making videos has also sucked up my reading time, but that’s for another category. Of the small selection of books read this year, I really enjoyed Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt, Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth, and Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim. (More about Arngrim’s book in an upcoming post.) The biggest disappointment was Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James.
Best Television: My television is usually always tuned to either Me-TV or CBS, except on Sunday night, when I watch Masterpiece on PBS. I still enjoy The Big Bang Theory, but I do think it’s losing something from having too many separate storylines, with the characters spending less time gathered in the same living room. More characters means less screen time for favorites Sheldon and Raj. I discovered Leverage in reruns just as the show got cancelled, but at least I have five seasons to explore further. Since September, I’ve been enjoying reruns of Emergency! on Me-TV. Another season of Sherlock brought more delight, as well as more Inspector Lewis. Thanks to a friend, I’m now back to enjoying EastEnders, the British serial drama, and already my life wouldn’t be complete without weekly visits to Albert Square. This year’s favorite program was Call the Midwife, featuring new favorite Miranda Hart as the wonderful Chummy. I can’t wait for more of this series!
Best Twitter: I’m very picky about twitter. Too much shameless self-promotion? Unfollow. Too many retweets? Unfollow. Too many conversations that should be private? Unfollow. No sense of humor? I shouldn’t have been following in the first place! I enjoy humor, whimsy, and folks who don’t take themselves too seriously. The most consistently entertaining tweets this year have come from Josh Groban. I’ve also enjoyed following Russell Tovey. I can count on a friend to share the best of Demetri Martin and The Onion, so I guess they count, too!
Best Theatre: Oops. Didn’t see any. Never mind.
Best Movies: I had good luck with the movies I saw in the cinema this year. Mind you, I still haven’t seen three of the four films I was most looking forward to in 2012, so they will have to wait until 2013! The Avengers was terrific, and I also enjoyed Life of Pi. The Dark Knight Rises wasn’t a favorite, but Tom Conti and Joseph Gordon-Levitt made it worthwhile for me. I saw my first 3D movie, John Carter, but I’m not a fan of the technology. It was a great year for silents: Napoleon was stunning, and I also saw three films at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, with The Canadian (1926) making the deepest impression. Shah Rukh Khan’s Jab Tak Hai Jaan had an entertaining beginning and middle, but I was disappointed by the third act. The best new film I saw in 2012 was Argo.
Best DVDs: I spent six months of this year with Wagon Train at the top of my Netflix queue. They never sent me any on the discs, and my queue always said “short wait.” I could have bought the DVDs for the money I spent on my Netflix plan, especially since I wasn’t watching the discs they sent me instead. I cancelled my account. This means I can’t go look at my history for this year to review, but this an easy category. The best DVDs of my year have been the classic television western Laramie, particularly seasons one and two. When I’m not watching the episodes again and again, I’m making tribute videos and posting them on YouTube. I now have more YouTube followers than blog followers! Which leads me to a new category…
Best Time-Sucker-Upper: Call it a hobby, a passion, an obsession, a skill or an art. But this year I started making videos, and now I can’t stop. I’d been making slideshows using still images at animoto.com, and this summer I tried using their template program for short video clips. It was okay, but I didn’t like their wide border which wasted space, so it forced me to try Windows Movie Maker. I had no idea it would be so much fun! My Laramie tribute videos aren’t very interesting to people who aren’t fans of the series, but I’m proud of my channel and grateful for all my followers.
Best Music: Mostly I’ve listened to older stuff this year. When Davy Jones died, I started listening to lots of the Monkees. I love Gaelic Storm’s album How Are We Getting Home? (2004), discovered in a stack of my own CDs that I never got around to hearing. I’m definitely going to listen to more of this group in 2013. I’ve also been enjoying lots of Kate Rusby. One of my favorite new old songs is “Can’t Turn My Heart Away” by Art Garfunkel. I’m still enjoying The Book of Mormon Broadway soundtrack, but I learned the hard way not to listen to it in public. Even with earphones, you look like a nutter snickering at the lyrics.
Best Music Video: My choices are never conventional, but that’s what you get for taking musical advice from me! Here’s my favorite:
Never mind that it was uploaded in 2008. It’s still the most adorable video I’ve seen on YouTube this year! If you don’t know it, this is India’s national anthem.
Best New-To-Me Software: Handbrake for ripping DVDs, and Google Talk for saving me a fortune on phone bills. I chat now with friends around the world, without the complications of installing Skype, and no webcam to show everyone how hideous I look through a fisheye lens.
Entertainer of the Year: Honorable Mention this year goes to Miranda Hart. I discovered her in Call the Midwife, and now I’m enjoying her comedy on YouTube and her BBC series Miranda. The winner is an easy choice. In April, I purchased season one of Laramie on DVD, and by the end of May, I was a member of Robert Fuller’s official fan group. While my favorite role is Jess Harper in Laramie, I’ve been enjoying Wagon Train, Emergency!, and all of Fuller’s other television shows and movies. I’ve spent hours chatting with other fans, making tribute videos and collages, and searching ebay for vintage photos. For so much entertainment in so many different ways, Robert Fuller is my Entertainer of the Year. Thank you, Mr. Fuller!
I recently watched the PBS documentary Pioneers of Television: Westerns, and I was struck by what Linda Evans said about Barbara Stanwyck, her co-star on The Big Valley. I didn’t know she was one of the nicest people in Hollywood, taking the time to get to know all the crew members and really enjoying herself on set. This led me to check out the book Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck by Ella Smith from my local library. I haven’t read much of the text, because the portraits in the book are too wonderful. This book is now out of print, but here are some of those images, with more to come. Perhaps it’s a cheat, to fill my blog pages, but what a great way to cheat!
In honor of SRK’s birthday, here are some favorite moments from Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003). This seems an appropriate choice this week, since the movie was filmed in New York. After the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, Aman and Naina are not the only ones crying.
I love Shah Rukh, and I’m counting the days until his new movie Jab Tak Hai Jaan opens on November 13th. Happy Birthday!
Click on any image to scroll through larger versions.
San Francisco is expecting some rain tonight, but a few soggy trick-or-treaters is nothing compared to what the folks on the east coast have suffered this week. Making videos and silly photoshop creations has given me a mental break from the Hurricane Sandy news.
I spent my summer experimenting with printing screencaptures from the television western Laramie onto photo paper. I didn’t think it would work, especially since the episodes are in desperate need of remastering. With a lot of trial and error, and many reorders from the photo lab, I came up with a few decent prints. It helped to keep the images small, collage them together, and only use the sharpest screencaptures with lots of contrast. A friend who attended the Spirit of the Cowboy festival in McKinney, Texas, had Robert Fuller autograph my creation. Getting it back in the mail was such a thrill. Thank you, Mr. Fuller! And Tumbleweed, too.
I hate having to resort to watermarks, but my images are being posted on other sites without credit or permission. The photos are from (clockwise from top left) 45 Calibre, Killers’ Odds, and The Lawbreakers.
Earlier this week, Jack Tygett passed away. In San Diego where I grew up, he was a popular teacher, director and choreographer. He danced in movies like Mary Poppins and Oklahoma. He also had roles in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (1965) and The Wild Wild West (The Night of the Puppeteer, season 1, 1966).
The news of Jack Tygett’s death brings back memories of the spring and summer of 1981. I was a senior in high school and member of San Diego Junior Theatre. I got a call from a friend offering me the job of rehearsal secretary for Starlight’s production of Flower Drum Song. Starlight (San Diego Civic Light Opera) is a summer theatre company that performs musicals in a large outdoor amphitheater in Balboa Park. Lots of kids from the Junior Theatre program go on to do Starlight, and I was already planning to submit a resume with the company that summer. I was thrilled to be offered a position. Jack Tygett and his wife Marge were the director and choreographer of Flower Drum Song, and I met them the next day. Here’s what I wrote in my journal:
April 17, 1981 Casa Del Prado, Room 207
Jenny Woo, Jimmy Saba, Beverly Davis, Lori Hood, Lara Tepper, Jill Brow, Audrey Pritchard, Tori Purdom, Steve Moramarco, Eileen Bowman
All these people from [San Diego] Junior Theatre auditioned today for Flower Drum Song and The Wizard of Oz. I came to the first audition totally unprepared for what I’d meet. The first person I met is my director, Mr. Jack Tygett. He reminds me of Red Buttons. Mrs. Tygett is okay, too. I was sooo hungry. They had food from McDonald’s, but it was Good Friday so Mom wouldn’t let me eat any. I felt like a baby running over to her to see if I could eat. We narrowed it down to a few kids. I kept losing my audition sheets. After the auditions, I went and got my driver’s license (!!!).
Yeah, the things that are worth writing down at age 18 make me cringe now! Once I ditched my mother by getting my driver’s license, it felt like I spent every waking moment working (or playing) on Flower Drum Song. We held fifty rehearsals, but there were also lots of parties and post-rehearsal meals, and even a road trip to Magic Mountain. I spent many hours at the Tygetts’ home with the cast, and I also got to know daughter Nan Tygett. Even when I screwed up, the Tygetts always treated me with warmth and patience. They accepted me as a member of their big extended theatre family.
Flower Drum Song requires a large cast to play Chinese and Chinese-American characters. The Tygetts cast the best dancers and performers who auditioned, many of them students who’d worked with the Tygetts before. We had some Japanese performers, many Filipinos, a lot of dark haired Caucasians, and even a pale blonde or two. I learned a lot that summer about different Asian cultures, and I also ate my first lumpia and sushi.
I lost touch with the Tygetts after that summer. Four years later, I was working at the La Jolla Playhouse on Merrily We Roll Along with some students from USIU, where the Tygetts taught. I asked one of them about Jack and Marge. This was when I learned that Marge had passed away. I was saddened by the news. Now that Jack has joined her, I’m sure there’s a lot more dancing in heaven!
Last month, several friends went to Kanab, Utah, for the annual Western Legends Roundup. One of the film stars at the festival was Robert Fuller, and one friend got this autographed photo for me. It’s from his role in Incident at Phantom Hill (1966).
Another friend took this lovely photo, and she has my gratitude and thanks for allowing me to post it here.
Fuller is going to be attending the first annual Spirit of the Cowboy festival in McKinney, Texas, this Friday and Saturday. I’m not able to go, but I have more friends who will be taking photos, collecting stories, and saying hello to Mr. Fuller for me. Hopefully, I’ll have more to share soon.
Colleen Moore was born on this day in either 1899 or 1902, depending on whether you believe the official reports or her own autobiography. I’ve only seen one of her films, Her Wild Oat (1927), but I got to see it on the big screen at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. She was a delight. My favorite actresses are feisty and independent, and she was both. She had an interesting connection with silent film comedian Buster Keaton—they both broke their necks filming on train tracks. In different movies, of course! Her autobiography Silent Star is a favorite of mine, and here are some of the photos from it. Moore died in 1988, but she is not forgotten, even though many of her film were lost. Happy Birthday, Ms. Moore!
Inspired by the song about unloved creatures who make their own good time and have a ball together.
A blog about the stuff that entertains me, including books, movies, television and theatre, with lots of photography and the occasional rant. I also have guest bloggers for a fresh perspective.
Wordpress is having technical issues with photos on their blog pages. I'm working to fix the images that have gone wonky. For images not in moving slideshows, click on the photos to see sharper versions. They will usually be larger, too.
I'm grateful to the BBC site for catching me up on EastEnders, but did I really need to know that Shane Richie likes his toenails painted? 5 months ago
There were so many ads in the middle of The Big Bang Theory tonight, I forgot what I was watching. Success has it's drawbacks. 5 months ago
—How many tribute videos can you squeeze out of two seasons of a television show?
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—My addiction to EastEnders is back in full force, after a long spell without access. New favorites are Jean and Tamwar.
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—I'm starting to make funny faces at an invisible camera...which only makes sense to those who've watched Miranda Hart in "Miranda."
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