Forgotten Hollywood

Manny P. here…

“`I sometimes mention that I had a cousin who was a former congressman. Esteban E. Torres was a politician who served as member of the United States House of Representatives for California’s 34th congressional district from 1983 to 1999. A Korean War veteran and longtime antipoverty activist,  his career on Capitol Hill put Torres in the vanguard of Latino influence in national politics.

“`Educated at East Los Angeles College, Torres served in the United States Army from 1949 to 1953. He was appointed United States Ambassador to UNESCO from 1977 to 1979 and also served as a special assistant to President Jimmy Carter from 1979 to 1981.

“`Torres was unsuccessful in his initial attempt to win a seat in the House of Representatives in 1974, but was elected in 1982 as a Democrat. He served from 1983 until 1999. He did not run for reelection in 1998 and was succeeded by Democrat Grace Napolitano. He served as a member of the California Transportation Commission from 1997 to 2007.

ESTEBAN E. TORRES 

“`A school in East Los Angeles was re-named Esteban E. Torres High School,  It opened on September 13th, 2010 and I was proud to attend the ceremony with my father. The facility has a unique educational approach with five academies:  Performing Arts, Engineering and Technology, Humanities, Art, and Social Justice and Leadership.

“`My cousin, Estaban Torres, was ninety-one. Tomorrow was his birthday…

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`I am walking down memory lane with John Coleman and Art Kirsch of Celebrating Act 2 as we reminisce about trips to the drive-in movie theatres.

“`Enjoy!

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P…

“`Celebrating Act 2 takes a look at villains in motion picture history with hosts John Coleman and Art Kirsch, especially in Gangster films and Westerns…

“`Enjoy!

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Hardy Krüger was a fine German actor who spent his youth learning to hate political extremism. He is well remembered for his roles in  Hatari! and The Flight of the Phoenix.

“`Krüger’s folks were fanatical Nazis and he was forced to attend an elite Adolf Hitler School at the Ordensburg Sonthofen.  In March 1945, Krüger was assigned to the 38th SS Division Nibelungen and ended up in heavy combat. The teen was ordered to fire at Allied soldiers. After he refused, Krüger was sentenced to die for cowardice. It was countermanded by an officer. Krüger described this moment as his break with Nazism. He later served as a messenger for the SS. Krüger eventually deserted and went into hiding until the end of the war.

“`He established himself as a German film star during the 1950s. Fluent in German, English and French, he first came to the attention of English language audiences in the 1957 British film The One That Got Away.  In 1960, Krüger bought Ngorongoro, a farm in what is now part of Tanzania, which he owned for over a decade.  This timely purchase led to him being cast in Hatari!, directed by Howard Hawks. After the success of the flick, his ranch was re-named The Hatari Lodge.

HARDY KRUGER      JAMES STEWART

“`In The Flight of the Phoenix, he was the standout among the talented ensemble, cast in the production. He co-starred with James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Ian Bannen, Ernest Borgnine, Peter Finch, and Dan Duryea. Other notable movies included The Secret of Santa Vittoria, Barry Lyndon, A Bridge Too Far, The Wild Geese and the television mini-series War and Remembrance.

“`Hardy Krüger was ninety-three.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Yvette Mimieux  was a popular film and television actress best known for her breakout role as Weena in The Time Machine. She was nominated for three Golden Globes during her acting career.         YVETTE MIMIEUX –>

“`Mimieux’s first screen appearance was in episodes of the television show, One Step Beyond in 1959. During the 1960s, she was under contract with MGM. She co-starred in Where the Boys Are, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, Diamond Head, Toys in the Attic, and The Delta Factor. Later, she appeared in The Neptune Factor and The Black Hole. On television, she guest-starred in Mr. Lucky, Dr. Kildare, and The Love Boat.

“`An entrepeneur, Mimieux was a writer for magazines and wrote short stories. This talent led to her submission of teleplays to producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg.  For a time, she had a business selling Haitian products.

“`Yvette Mimieux was eighty.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`From a 1929 Photoplay Magazine’s Hollywood advertisement. Check out the names…

“`Here is where to write to your favorite stars. If you request a photograph, you would have to enclose .25 cents in stamps or in silver coins (all wrapped carefully).

“`This was too amazing not to share!

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`What an absolute joy to chat about Stephen Sondheim with Art Kirsch and John Coleman on Celebrating Act 2. I share forgotten nuggets about the noted lyricist.

“`Enjoy!

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Hayley Mills received an Oscar on Sunday, to replace the mini statuette version that went missing from her home in the late 1980s. She received her accolade in 1960 for her performance in Pollyanna. Hayley Mills ->

“`Hayley,  who is the daughter of the late veteran actor John Mills, first was noticed while alongside her father in Tiger Bay before becoming a box-office smash for Disney in the 1960s. She starred in flicks such as In Search of the Castaways, The Parent Trap and That Darn Cat!.

“`She was the last actor to receive a Juvenile Oscar, which had been given out sporadically since 1934. Previous winners included Mickey Rooney, Shirley Temple and Judy Garland.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Please join me this Friday at 4p for my first book-signing event in 2022. This is part of the Lianne and Friends series of lectures at Fred Hesse Community Park, 29301 Hawthorne Blvd., in Rancho Palos Verdes.

“`Stop on by and pick up autographed copies of my Forgotten Hollywood Book Series (3).  Consider this my personal invitation if you live in Southern California!

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`2022 is a vulture and it has just claimed two more notables…

============================

“`Dwayne Hickman rose to fame opposite Bob Denver in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Part of acting royalty, his brother Daryl Hickman was a noted big screen child star.  Dwayne was an extra in The Grapes of Wrath, Men of Boys Town, and The Hoodlum Saint. He also played different small roles in Columbia Pictures’ eight-film Rusty series, about a boy and his valiant German Shepherd. He also co-starred in Rally ‘Round the Flag Boys!.

“`Prior to his breakthrough on Dobie Gillis, Hickman appeared on The Bob Cummings Show and he guest-starred on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.  After his successful run on his sitcom, he had roles in several of the American International Beach Party movies and in Cat Ballou. He was successful on the small screen with walk-ons in Combat!, Ironside, The Flying Nun,  Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color,  Perry Mason,  The Mod Squad, Love American Style and Murder She Wrote.

“`Dwayne Hickman was eighty-seven.

                                     DWAYNE HICKMAN             BOB SAGET

“`Bob Saget was a stand-up comedian, actor, and television host. His acting roles included the ABC sitcom Full House and its Netflix sequel Fuller House. Saget was the voice of narrator Ted Mosby on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother. From 1989 to 1997, he was the host of the ABC series America’s Funniest Home Videos. He guest-starred on Bosom Buddies, The Greatest American Hero, Quantum Leap, It’s a Living, and Entourage.

“`Bob Saget was sixty-five.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Marilyn Bergman was the Oscar-winning lyricist who collaborated with husband Alan Bergman on How Do You Keep the Music Playing, The Way We Were and many other compositions.  They teamed with some of the top contemporary composers such as Marvin Hamlisch, Cy Coleman and Michel Legrand, and were covered by the world’s best singers, including Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson.

“`The Bergmans, who wed in 1958, were among the most enduring and productive songwriting partnerships, specializing in introspective ballads for film, television, and the stage that combined the romance of Tin Pan Alley with a polish of contemporary pop. Their style defined music of the 1960s and 1970s.

“`The collaborative process began when they penned the title tracks for Dean Martin’s album Sleep Warm and Frank Sinatra’s album Nice ‘n’ Easy. Their songs included the Streisand-Neil Diamond duet You Don’t Bring Me Flowers. They also helped develop the uptempo themes to the 1970s sitcoms Alice, Maude and Good Times.

“`But they were best known for their contributions to movies. Among the highlights: Stephen Bishop’s It Might Be You from Tootsie; Noel Harrison’s The Windmills of Your Mind from The Thomas Crown Affair; and they wrote they lyrics for In the Heat of the Night with music by Quincy Jones for the 1967 film. Their work with Legrand on Yentl won them the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, with the songs Papa Can You Hear Me? and The Way He Makes Me Feel from the film also being nominated for Best Original Song.

“`Marilyn served as president and chairman of American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) for fifteen years from 1994 to 2009. She also was the president of the National Recording Preservation Board.

“`Marilyn Bergman was ninety-three.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Sidney Poitier was a trailblazing actor with a dignified career that redefined the Black experience on screen. His career highlights were plentiful, including performances in The Blackboard Jungle, The Defiant Ones, Raisin in the Sun,  Porgy and Bess, The Bedford Incident, In the Heat of the Night, A Patch of Blue, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, To Sir with Love, For the Love of Ivy, Sneakers and an Oscar-winning turn in Lilies of the Field (the initial Black male actor to earn this honor). Poitier has been compared to Jackie Robinson for his groundbreaking work in film.    SIDNEY POITIER –>

“`Born in Miami, Poitier grew up in the Bahamas before he moved to New York at sixteen. He fibbed about his age to sign up for a stint in the Army  and then he worked at odd jobs while taking acting lessons. The young actor got his first break when he met the casting director of the American Negro Theater and was hired as the understudy for Harry Belafonte in Days of Our Youth. A minor sensation on Broadway, his first movie role was in 1950 in the acclaimed No Way Out.  He portrayed a doctor.

“`For the next two decades, he began working in a string of intelligent dramas. Poitier picked his parts with care,  burying the tired Hollywood notion that Black actors could appear only in demeaning contexts as shoeshine boys, train conductors and maids. After his success with In the Heat of the Night, he played Virgil Tibbs in a couple of crime films. Poitier later directed Buck and the Preacher, Uptown Saturday Night and Stir Crazy.

“`He influenced many colleagues, such as Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Brock Peters, Woody Strode, and Ruby Dee.  Plus, his A-List co-stars included Clark Gable, Glenn Ford, Tony Curtis, Richard Widmark, Shelley Winters, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Redford and Rod Steiger. Great directors collaborated and they include William Wellman (his personal favorite), Raoul Walsh, Joseph Mankiewicz, Richard Brooks, Norman Jewison, and Stanley Kramer. Over the years,  Poitier earned honored comparisons to Belafonte, Marion Anderson, Paul Robeson, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison.

“`Assignments and accolades took up most of his later life. From 1995 to 2003, Poitier served as a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company.  In April, 1997, Poitier was appointed ambassador from the Bahamas to Japan, a position he held until 2007. He was concurrently the ambassador of the Bahamas to UNESCO. Along with his many acting awards, Poitier received a Kennedy Center Honor and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama. He was also named an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.  The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences just last year dedicated within the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles — the Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby in his honor.

“`His life-long friend was Belafonte. Belafonte always lamented that he craved to be a serious actor like Poitier;  while Sidney secretly want a career as a crooner, something Harry enjoyed. And so it goes…

“`Sir Sidney Poitier was ninety-four.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Peter Bogdanovich  was an Oscar-nominated writer and director and he dabbled as a film critic and cinematic historian in his spare time. His many credits included The Last Picture Show, What’s Up Doc? and Paper Moon.  He turned down iconic assignments, such as The Godfather, The Exorcist and Chinatown.

“`An obsessive cinephile and seeing up to four hundred movies a year in his youth,  Bogdanovich kept a paper file of every flick he watched between 1952 and 1970, with complete reviews of each movie. He was influenced by the French critics of the 1950s who penned for Cahiers du Cinéma, especially critic-turned-director François Truffaut.

“`Bogdanovich started his career as a critic, writing articles for Esquire. In the early 1960s, Bogdanovich was known as a motion picture programmer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Bogdanovich showcased works of American directors such as Howard Hawks. After moving to Los Angeles and becoming buddys with director Roger Corman, Bogdanovich secured directing gigs in small productions. In 1970, he was commissioned by the American Film Institute to direct a documentary about John Ford for their tribute, Directed by John Ford.  This resulting piece included candid interviews with John Wayne, James Stewart, and Henry Fonda, and was narrated by close-friend Orson Welles.

“`Following his success with period pieces, The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, and a homage to screwball comedy, What’s Up Doc?, Bogdanovich solidified his status as one of a new breed of A-list directors that included Academy Award winners Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin, with whom he formed The Directors Company.  They received a production deal with Paramount Pictures that essentially gave the directors carte blanche if they kept within budget limitations.

PETER BOGDANOVICH

“`Later assignments never measured up to his initial triumphs. They included Daisy Miller, At Long Last Love, Nickelodean, They All Laughed, and his sequel to The Last Picture Show, Texasville. His one success during this period was Mask. He had a recurring part in The Sopranos and had a small role in both Kill Bill films after living in Quentin Tarantino’s guesthouse for a year.

“`In 2010, Bogdanovich was invited to join the directing faculty at the School of Filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Most recently, Peter collaborated with Turner Classic Movies, and TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, to create a podcast about his life and career, which premiered in 2020.  His works have been cited as influences by such filmmakers as Tarantino, David Fincher, David O. Russell, Sofia Coppola, and Wes Anderson.

“`Peter Bogdanovich was eighty-two.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Let us begin 2022 with an engaging comparison of actors from Hollywood’s Golden Age and movie stars of the 21st century. I present a conversation with John Coleman and Art Kirsch on Celebrating Act 2. Agree or disagree!

“`Enjoy!

Until next time>                               “never forget”

Manny P. here…

“`Betty White was a pioneer of early television, with a career spanning eight decades. She was among the first women to exert control in front and behind the camera and the first woman to produce a sitcom, which she did in 1955s Life with Elizabeth. She is best known for her trio of performances on television; Sue Ann Nivens in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rose Nylund in The Golden Girls, and Elka Ostrovsky in Hot in Cleveland. She memorably tackled substantive issues, such as the HIV crises, on episodes of The Golden Girls.               BETTY WHITE —>

“`Inspired by her idols Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, she decided to pursue a career as an actress. White started her entertainment career in radio in the late 1930s and by 1939 had made her small screen debut crooning on an experimental channel in Los Angeles. After serving with the American Women’s Voluntary Service, which helped the Allied effort during World War II, she was a regular on Hollywood on Television, a daily five-hour live variety show, in 1949.

          BETTY WHITE

“`White became a celebrity panelist on several game shows, including Match Game, To Tell the Truth, Tattletales, The Hollywood Squares and The $25,000 Pyramid. She married Password host Allen Ludden in 1963. For almost two decades, she co-hosted coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade.  NBC offered White a chance to co-anchor for the Today show. She turned it down and the work eventually went to Barbara Walters.  White spent ten-years as the hostess of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for CBS.

“`After wonderful success on The Mary Tyler Moore Show,  White guest-starred on  The Bold and the Beautiful, Boston Legal, The Carol Burnett Show and Saturday Night Live. A recurring role on Mama’s Family followed, along with future Golden Girls co-star Rue McClanahan. White reprised her Rose Nylund character in guest roles on the NBC shows, Empty Nest and Nurses, both set in Miami. On an episode of  The John Larroquette Show, she was reunited with Estelle Getty and McClanahan  (right with Bea Arthur). She also had recurring roles in The Bold and the Beautiful and Boston Legal.

“`Over the years, she claimed Lucille Ball, Liberace, Mary Tyler Moore, Grant Tinker and John Steinbeck as personal friends. However, the four-legged furry types were her favorite. White was a pet enthusiast and animal welfare advocate, who worked with organizations, including the Los Angeles Zoo Commission, The Morris Animal Foundation, African Wildlife Foundation, and Actors and Others for Animals. Her interest in animal welfare began in the early 1970s.

“`White worked longer in television than anyone else, earning her a Guinness World Record in 2018. She received eight Emmy Awards, three American Comedy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards,and a Grammy Award. She earned a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame and was a 1985 Television Hall of Fame inductee. The Associated Press selected her Entertainer of the Year in 2010. A 2011 Reuters/Ipsos poll named her as the most popular and trusted celebrity in America with an 86% favorability rating.

“`Before White’s passing, it was announced that her milestone birthday would be celebrated on January 17, 2022 at American theatres with a screening of a new documentary-style movie celebrating White’s life and career titled… Betty White: 100 Years Young – A Birthday Celebration. People magazine features her as the cover story in the January 2022 newsstand publication to celebrate the anticipated milestone and it was released days before her death.

“`The eubillient Betty White was seventeen days shy of her 100th birthday. The password is GOLDEN. Let us draw the curtain on 2021…

Until next time>                               “never forget”