Cesar Romero was born in 1907 in New York to Cuban parents. He had a very lengthy and profilic career, his first film been “The Shadow Laughs” in 1933 and his last film performance was in 1988 in “Judgement Day”. Among his major films were “Springtime in the Rockies”, “Lady in Ermione”, “Captain from Castile” and “Lust in the Dust”. Cesar Romero died in 1994.
“Independent” obituary:
Caesar Julius Romero (Cesar Romero), actor: born New York City 15 February 1907; died Santa Monica, California 1 January 1994.
CESAR ROMERO was the most ubiquitous – and his career was the longest – of those actors who, starting with Valentino, were typecast as Latin lovers. This meant being suave and slick, as in one of his earliest films, The Thin Man (1934), when for a while audiences weren’t quite sure whether he was Minna Gombell’s husband or her gigolo. It was his appearance in the Broadway hit Dinner at Eight which had attracted the interest of the studios.
The world, then, was Hollywood’s oyster and, since he hardly looked like a red-blooded Grade-A American baseball player, Romero was cast as various foreigners, usually treacherous: an Indian nabob in Clive of India, a Russian prince spying for Germany in Rendezvous (both 1935). As a young French lover in Cardinal Richelieu, he was innocuous, and he was ludicrous as Marlene Dietrich’s true love in The Devil is a Woman (both 1935). She was ‘the toast of Spain . . . the most dangerous woman you’ll ever meet,’ says Lionel Atwill, at the same time so besotted with her that he refuses to cede her to the much younger Romero. Twentieth Century-Fox engaged Romero to play a notorious Indian chieftain in Wee Willie Winkie (1937) – which turned Kipling’s boy hero into Shirley Temple – and put him under contract. Over the next few years Fox had a number of female stars as popular as Miss Temple, including Sonja Henie, Loretta Young, Alice Faye and Betty Grable. The arrival of another, Carmen Miranda, called for stories set South of the Border. Romero’s days of villainy and paid love were over, with the bonus of his name sometimes above the title: but he was invariably the Other Man, the fall-guy, or best buddy to the hero or heroine.
He was also the Cisco Kid, a ‘lovable’, daredevil Mexican bandit first played by Warner Baxter in several early talkies. Fox resurrected him for Return of the Cisco Kid (1939), but the half-dozen films which followed – all Bs – provoked little interest. Romero looked better, however, in the Kid’s buttons and bows than in the white tie and tails, the tuxes and the bum-jackets which he usually sported. He was usually dressed as though escorting a pretty doll to a night-club because that was what he was usually doing. Fox gave him a rare taxing role in Captain from Castile (1947), as Cortez, and he was capable but hardly more. The star was Tyrone Power, with whom Romero was said to have had a long-standing romance. In studio parlance, Romero was ‘a confirmed bachelor’.
When the studio system broke up in the early 1950s Romero’s familiarity as a character actor was strong enough to keep him in work over the next 30 years. His career received a fillip when he played the Joker in the television series Batman, and he reprised it in the 1966 movie which capitalised on its popularity. In recent years, looking distinguished with white hair and his trim trademark moustache, he was often to be found introducing his films on American television and reminiscing about their stars. Very often, in fact, since there were few with whom he had not worked.
The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Barry Nelson has the distinction of been the first James Bond on celluloid, even if it was television. He was born in 1917 in San Francisco. During his military service during World Ward Two, he made his Broadway debut in Moss Hart’s “Winged Victory” and followed this up with “Light Up the Sky”. His movie debut had been in 1941 in “Shadow of the Thin Man” and this was followed by “A Yank on the Burma Road
, “The Human Comedy”, “Airport” and “The Shining”. Barry Nelson died in 2007 at the age of 90.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
A genial, well-respected, all-around “nice guy”, the breezily handsome Barry Nelson was born Robert Haakon Nielsen on April 16, 1917, in San Francisco, California, of Scandinavian heritage. He was raised in nearby Oakland and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1941. A talent scout from MGM caught Barry in a college production of “Macbeth” and quickly sized up his potential. Cast in earnest secondary roles including Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) and Dr. Kildare’s Victory (1942), he was assigned the lead in the war film A Yank on the Burma Road (1942). Serving in WWII, he appeared in the Moss Hart play “Winged Victory”, in what would become his Broadway debut, in 1943 and a year later he appeared as “Corporal Barry Nelson” in the 1944 film version of the play. Barry lost major ground in films during the post-war years, but certainly made up for it on the live stage by appearing in a string of New York successes ranging from “The Rat Race” to “The Moon Is Blue.”
On TV, in addition to becoming a trivia statistic in the Hollywood annals as being the first to give video life to Ian Fleming‘s “007” agent James (“Jimmy”) Bond in a one-hour production of “Casino Royale” in 1954, Barry lit up the small screen in such dramatic programs as Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) and, in particular, a memorable episode ofTwilight Zone (1959). He also starred in the series The Hunter (1952), a Cold War adventure, and My Favorite Husband (1953), in which he played the level-headed mate and “straight man” to daffy blonde Joan Caulfield. In the 1960s he continued to demonstrate his acting muscle on stage and TV, although he did manage to preserve on film his starring role in Mary, Mary (1963), a huge Broadway hit with Debbie Reynolds co-starring in place of stage partner Barbara Bel Geddes. The lightweight play “Cactus Flower” with Lauren Bacall was another bright vehicle, but star Walter Matthau‘s clout cost Barry the part when it went to film. Through it all Barry remained a thoroughly solid professional, particularly in the realm of TV-movies. Such standouts include his neighbor/undercover agent to criminals-on-the-run Don Murray and Inger Stevens in The Borgia Stick (1967) and his blind plane crash survivor in Seven in Darkness (1969).
The 1970s proved a very good decade indeed for Barry theater-wise with “Seascape,” “The Norman Conquests” and Liza Minnelli‘s “The Act” among his pleasures, the last-mentioned earning him a Tony nomination. Despite co-starring roles in the blockbuster hit Airport (1970) and comedy Pete ‘n’ Tillie (1972), the silver screen would not become his strong suit in later years. By the early 1990s he had fully retired.
A popular, clean-cut, down-to-earth “Average Joe” with a charmingly sly side, you just couldn’t help but like Barry Nelson. Although he certainly could play the deceptive villain when called upon, he was usually the kind of guy you’d root for having as a neighbor, pal or business partner. Divorced from actress Teresa Celli for quite some time and completely retired now, he and second wife Nansilee (they married in 1992) traveled extensively and enjoyed antique shopping in particular. In 2007, during one of their many excursions, Barry passed away quietly at age 89 at a hotel in Bucks County, Pennesylvania.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Barbara RuickKeep It Cool, poster, US poster, Barbara Ruick (top), Tony Pastor (bottom right), mid 1950s. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
Barbara Ruick was born in 1930 in Pasadena, California. She was the daughter of actress Lurene Tuttle. She is prehaps best known for her role of Carrie Pipperidge in the film musical “Carousel” with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. Her other films include “Confidentially Connie” in 1953 and “The Affair of Dobie Gillis”. Barbara Ruick was married to the reknowned film composer John Williams. She died in 1974 at the young age of 44.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
A bundle of bright sunshine and unabashed energy, lovely musical actress Barbara Ruick delighted audiences for over two decades. The brown-eyed singer/actress who admittedly came up short in the dancing department nevertheless toyed with top musical stardom in mid-1950s films and almost nabbed it. A vivacious beauty whose sparkling, fresh-faced appeal reminded one instantly of a Mitzi Gaynor or Vera-Ellen, Barbara’s untimely death at age 41 robbed Hollywood of a tried-and-true talent.
She was born on December 23, 1930 in sunny Pasadena, California, the daughter of show biz professionals. Father Mel Ruick was a well respected radio actor and announcer while mother Lurene Tuttle earned equal distinction as a radio player and (later) reliable TV and film performer playing a lovely assortment of fluttery matrons and mothering types. Deeply influenced by her parents’ obvious success and fulfillment, the blonde and starry-eyed Barbara started acting on radio and TV as a Hollywood High School teenager. One of her first jobs was in the chorus of Chico Marx‘s TV show despite the fact she was a lackluster dancer.
Following other TV work, the just-turned-21 Barbara earned the attention of MGM and signed a long-term contract with the topnotch studio. She dutifully apprenticed in starlet parts with bit or unbilled roles in both musical and dramatic outings including Invitation(1952), Scaramouche (1952) and Fearless Fagan (1952). Slightly better parts were handed to her in the films You for Me (1952), Above and Beyond (1952) and Apache War Smoke (1952). The last movie mentioned co-starred future husband Robert Horton, known for his rugged appearances in numerous westerns. The twosome married in Las Vegas in 1953.
The next couple of years were quite frustrating for Barbara at MGM. After finally earning a second femme lead role in the film The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953) alongside Bobby Van, Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse, MGM inexplicably reverted her right back to playing bit parts again in such offerings as Confidentially Connie (1953), I Love Melvin (1953) and The Band Wagon (1953). She finally retreated from both MGM and Hollywood and returned to New York to concentrate on TV. She earned a slew of assignments including a number of variety show appearances. On series TV she was a bright and breezy regular for such stalwarts as Ezio Pinza, Jerry Colonna and Johnny Carson. She also proved her dramatic mettle on such programs as “The Loretta Young Show,” “The Public Defender” and “The Lineup”.
Out of nowhere Barbara was ushered back to Hollywood for the most important film role of her career. In Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic Carousel (1956), it seemed that stardom was just within reach after winning the cute and flighty Carrie Piperidge role alongside Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. Ruick shined in the well-mounted 20th Century-Fox production while offering a lovely rendition of “When I Marry Mr. Snow”. Instead of this success propelling Barbara into other films, it would be her last movie for nearly two decades. She also recorded for Columbia Records around this period but, other than a couple of novelty items, none of her songs ever made it to the top of the charts.
Divorced from actor Horton in 1956, Barbara married Academy Award-winning composer and Boston Pops conductor John Williams that same year. They had one daughter and two sons. The boys went on to have musical careers of their own; their daughter became a doctor. She continued to thrive on TV in the late 50s. In 1965 angular Barbara and plump Pat Carroll camped it up and nearly stole the proceedings as the evil stepsisters with their uproarious version of “The Stepsisters Lament” in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s star-studded musical special Cinderella (1965) starring Lesley Ann Warren.
Barbara was little seen in the ensuing years but did pop up for a small role as a barmaid in the comedy film California Split (1974) showcasing the then-hot film stars Elliott Gouldand George Segal. Barbara died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 3, 1974 in Reno, Nevada. Although her musical gifts were shamefully underused by MGM in the early 1950s, her comeback role in Carousel (1956) will endure and remain a film treasure.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Anne Seymour was a formidable character actress who acted in Hollywood films from the 1940’s. She was born in 1909 in New York. Her great-uncle was the great character actor Harry Davenport. She made her movie debut in 1949 as Broderick Crawford’s wife in “All the King’s Men”. Her other films include “Home from the Hill” and “Field of Dreams”. She died in 1988.
Her IMDB entry:
The daughter of a copper expert (William Stanley Eckert) and an actress and museum curator (May Davenport), character actress Anne Seymour was born on September 11, 1909 in New York City. She was the seventh generation of a theatrical family that could be tracked back to Ireland in 1740. Her great-uncle was the popular character actor Harry Davenport and her two older brothers were writer James Seymour (42nd Street (1933)) and actor John Seymour (The Sporting Club (1971)).
Anne trained for the stage at the American Laboratory Theatre School with Richard Boleslawski and Maria Ouspenskaya, and began her career performing with The Jitney Players. She, as did her brothers, eventually changed her stage moniker from Eckert to her mother’s maiden name of Seymour. After touring throughout New England, Anne made her New York debut in Mr. Moneypenny in 1928. Other Broadway shows followed including At the Bottom (1930) and A School for Scandal (1931). The following year, she entered the world of radio drama. Her distinctively warm style and vocal timbre were perfect for playing some of radio’s noblest, self-sacrificing heroines. She portrayed “Mary Marlin” for 11 popular seasons; it turned out to be her most identifiable role.
In the late 1940s Anne switched to film and made an auspicious debut as Lucy Stark in the Oscar-winning picture All the King’s Men (1949). Although movie appearances would remain sporadic and relatively minor, Anne was a solid, capable player during the golden age of television and could be seen dressing up many glossy dramas, including Studio One in Hollywood (1948) and Robert Montgomery Presents (1950). Her rather hawkish, matronly features, which seemed in stark contrast to her smooth, modulated tones, nevertheless had her primarily playing benevolent roles as concerned relatives and professionals somewhat in the background.
In 1958, Anne earned strong marks for her portrayal of Sara Delano Roosevelt alongside Tony-winning Ralph Bellamy‘s FDR in “Sunrise at Campobello” on Broadway. She lost the 1960 movie role to Ann Shoemaker. Anne was actively involved on the SAG and AFTRA boards throughout a good portion of her career. Unmarried, she died in 1988 of natural causes after completing a small part in the popular film Field of Dreams (1989).
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Anthony Dexter was born in 1913 in Nebraska. He served in Europe with the American forces during World War Two. He won the lead role of Rudolph Valentino in his first film “Valentino” in 1951. His films include “The Brigand”, “Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl” and his final film in 1967, “Thoroughly Modern Millie”. He died in 2001.
IMDB entry:
Sporting the name Walter Craig when out of the limelight and the stage name Anthony Dexter when in it, he rounded out his years teaching high school English, Speech, and Drama classes at Eagle Rock High School (circa 1968-78) in the Los Angeles area. His best-known role as an actor, however, occurred when he landed the part of Rudolph Valentino in the actor’s biopic Valentino (1951). He was reputed to have won the role from a competitive field of 75,000 aspiring Valentinos. The film’s producer, ‘Edward Small’, claimed to have made 400 screen tests for the part until discovering Dexter–the perfect fit. So much alike was Dexter in appearance to Valentino that Valentino fan clubs, upon learning of Dexter, applauded the choice of him to play their star. Even the press lauded Dexter as “incredible. The same eyes, ears, mouth–the same grace in dancing” (according to a 1950 Los Angeles Times article quoting George Melford, who directed Valentino in The Sheik (1921). Although “Valentino” was not the success its producers had hoped for, Dexter managed to garner future parts in movies similar to the roles the real Valentino had played: John Smith in Captain John Smith and Pocahontas (1953); Captain Kidd in Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl (1954); a pirate leader in The Black Pirates (1954); Christopher Columbus in The Story of Mankind (1957). After these roles, his career gradually diminished until ultimately he was cast in a bit part in Julie Andrews‘ vehicle Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967).
Dexter grew up on a farm in Talmadge, Nebraska, where he played such good football in high school that he earned a scholarship to St. Olaf’s College in Minnesota. There he began his pursuit of stage and screen, singing first in the college’s choir before going on to the University of Iowa to get his M.A. in speech and drama. Even during World War II, Dexter–then a sergeant with the Army Special Services–toured England and other parts of the European theater of war doing the show “Claudia.” Having not limited himself to movies, he did at least one notable run at summer theatre in San Francisco in “The King and I” and added to his credits parts in the Broadway shows “The Three Sisters,” “Ah, Wilderness” and “The Barretts of Wimpole Street.” He died at the age of 88 in Greeley, Colorado.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Patrick King <patrick_king@hotmail.com> (qv’s & corrections by A. Nonymous)
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
The Parson And The Outlaw, poster, US poster art, Anthony Dexter (right & insert), Charles Buddy Rogers (left, lower insert),1957. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
Lee Philips had the leading male role inthe movie “Peyton Place” opposite Lana Turner in 1957 but nothing he did before or afterwards acheived the same level of fame. He was born in 1927 in New York. He began his career on the stage and acted in several television shows before playing Dr Michael Rossi in the hughly successful “Peyton Place”. It is odd that he did not then become a major star of film. His subsequent movies include “The Hunters” in 1958 with Robert Mitchum and May Britt and “Middle of the Night” with Fredric March and Kim Novak. He turned to television directing and had a very profilic career. Lee Philips died in 1999 at the age of 72.
His Wikipedia entry{
Lee Philips (January 10, 1927 – March 3, 1999) was an American actor and director.
Philips’ acting career started on Broadway, and peaked with a starring role as Michael Rossi in the film adaptation of Peyton Place opposite Lana Turner.
In the 1960s his career shifted towards directing, with credits ranging from the television series of Peyton Place to The Dick Van Dyke Show. He still did occasional acting, such as his appearance in 1963 in “Never Wave Goodbye”, a two-part episode of The Fugitive. Also in 1963, he played a lead role in “Passage on the Lady Anne”, an hour-long episode of The Twilight Zone; he returned to the show the following year in the episode “Queen of the Nile”, where he plays a reporter named Jordan ‘Jordy’ Herrick. He appeared in Flipper in 1964 and also made two guest appearances on Perry Mason in 1965: as Kevin Lawrence in “The Case of the Golden Venom,” and murderer Gordon Evans in “The Case of the Fatal Fortune.” Also guest starred on the Combat!: episode: “A Walk with an Eagle”. He directed Dick Van Dyke on several episodes of Diagnosis: Murder. In 1973 he directed The Girl Most Likely to… starring Stockard Channing.
Jacqueline Bisset was born in 1944 in Weybridge, Surrey. She began her career in British films and came to prominence in 1967 in “Two for the Road” with Audrey Hepburn anf Albert Finney. The following year she was in Hollywood making “The Detective” with Frank Sinatra and Lee Remick followed by “Bullit” with Steve McQueen. She has had a very profilic career starring opposite major actors like Jon Voight, Charles Bronson, Paul Newman and Michael York. Her most recent film is “The Last Film Festival” with Dennis Hopper.
TCM Overview:
British actress Jacqueline Bisset rose to fame in the 1970s as the object of desire for numerous top actors in features like “Bullitt” (1968), “Airport” (1970), “The Deep” (1977) and “The Greek Tycoon” (1978). Few of these roles allowed her to express anything more than slow-simmering sexuality, but gradually films like Francois Truffaut’s “Day for Night” (1973), George Cukor’s “Rich and Famous” (1981) and John Huston’s “Under the Volcano” (1983) revealed her talent for intelligent, complex performances. Unlike many actresses as they approached their fourth and fifth decades, Bisset remained active and in demand, playing a wide range of parts from stalwart mothers to seductive socialites. What remained constant throughout her four-decade career was her cool elegance, which preserved her iconic status as one of the screen’s great international beauties.
Born Winifred Jacqueline Bisset in the town of Weybridge in Surrey, England on Sept. 13, 1944, she was the daughter of Scottish doctor Max Bisset and his French wife, Arlette, a former lawyer who taught her daughter to speak her native tongue fluently. Bisset’s initial passion was ballet, which she studied as a child, but as she grew into a willowy adolescent, she was considered too tall to pursue dance as a career. Bisset’s teenage years were marked by major upheaval in her family life. After her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, her father left the family, forcing his daughter to support her mother and younger brother, Max through modeling. The latter job led to an interest in acting, and Bisset made her screen debut as an uncredited extra in Richard Lester’s “The Knack and How to Get It” (1965), which also launched the film careers of Charlotte Rampling and Jane Birkin.
She earned her first lines in Roman Polanski’s “Cul-de-Sac” (1966), but soon settled into a series of ornamental roles that were largely defined by her next picture, the all-star James Bond spoof, “Casino Royale” (1966), which cast her as Miss Goodthighs. Bit roles soon blossomed into supporting parts in “The Detective” (1968), where she replaced Mia Farrow as the wife of a murder victim investigated by Frank Sinatra, and “The Sweet Ride” (1968), a counterculture drama that earned her a Golden Globe nomination as a mystery woman who came between beach bums Tony Franciosa, Michael Sarrazin and Bob Denver. In 1969, she was an innocent teen whose trip to America ends in romantic failure and prostitution in Jerry Paris’ relentlessly downbeat “The Grasshopper.”
Bisset’s star-making role finally came in 1968 with “Bullitt,” where her cool beauty was matched perfectly by Steve McQueen’s frosty dramatics as a tough San Francisco detective with a penchant for hard driving. The film’s popularity elevated Bisset to major Hollywood features in the 1970s, though not more substantive roles; she was pilot Dean Martin’s pregnant mistress – and perhaps the first actress to belt Helen Hayes across the face – in the big-budget disaster film “Airport” (1970), then played elegant love interests for such actors as Alan Alda in “The Mephisto Waltz” (1971), Paul Newman in “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” (1972), Ryan O’Neal in “The Thief Who Came to Dinner” (1973), Charles Bronson in “St. Ives” (1976) and Anthony Quinn, as a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis, who romanced Bisset’s ersatz Jacqueline Kennedy in “The Greek Tycoon” (1978). Her most memorable turn of the decade came in “The Deep” (1977), Peter Yates’ adaptation of the popular thriller by Peter Benchley. The film boosted her status as a pin-up thanks to its opening sequence, in which Bisset appeared in a wet t-shirt that left little to the imagination. She later denounced the scene, stating that producer Peter Guber had assured her that it would not be shot in an exploitative way.
Feeling frustrated by the lack of quality projects from Hollywood, Bisset returned to Europe throughout the 1970s, where she played a British actress on the verge of a nervous breakdown in Francois Truffaut’s backstage drama “Day for Night” (1973). The picture, which she later declared as her most fulfilling film role, reversed most critics’ perception of her as little more than a pretty face, and led to more work overseas, including Philippe Broca’s spy spoof “Le Magnifique” (1973), with French movie idol Jean-Paul Belmondo; Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-winning, all-star adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express” (1974); and the German thriller “End of the Game” (1975) for director Maximilian Schell. She and Schell also later shared godparent duties for Angelina Jolie, daughter of the film’s star, Jon Voight. Bisset ended the 1970s with a Golden Globe nomination for her turn as a pastry chef targeted by a killer in the charming comedy-thriller, “Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?”
Bisset began the 1980s on a sour note with huge back-to-back flops in Irwin Allen’s disaster film “When Time Ran Out” (1980) and the epic Korean War drama “Inchon” (1981), which earned brickbats for receiving funding by the Unification Church. But she quickly rebounded with a string of successful and mature dramas, starting in 1981 with “Rich and Famous.” Directed by the legendary George Cukor, the film followed a pair of friends (Bisset and Candice Bergen) through four turbulent decades of romances, successes and failures. The film also marked Bisset’s sole effort as a producer in an earnest attempt to wrest control over her career.
Though “Class” (1983), an ironically class-free sex comedy about a prep school student (Andrew McCarthy) sleeping with friend Rob Lowe’s mother (Bisset) was undoubtedly her most financially successful film of the decade, her subsequent choices were critically acclaimed dramas, including several for American television, which helped to finally establish Bisset as a capable and versatile actress. She earned a Golden Globe nomination as the wife of an alcoholic consul (her “Two for the Road” co-star Albert Finney) in John Huston’s “Under the Volcano” (1984), and then received a CableACE nod as German countess Nina von Halder, who hid her Jewish boyfriend (Jurgen Prochnow) from the Nazis in “Forbidden” (1985). Clare Peploe’s “High Season” (1987) gave her a leading role as a photographer who becomes embroiled in small town dramas on the Greek island of Rhodes, while Paul Bartel’s “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills” (1989) allowed her a rare shot at comedy as a wealthy widow beset by everything from amorous employees to the ghost of her husband (Paul Mazursky).
As the 1990s ushered Bisset into her fifth decade, she worked largely in independent features and TV movies on both sides of the Atlantic, most notably in Claude Chabrol’s “La Ceremonie” (1995), which earned her a Cesar nomination as a wealthy woman whose cruel treatment of her dyslexic servant (Sandrine Bonnaire) is repaid with violence. In 1999, she received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations as Isabelle d’Arc, mother of French martyr “Joan of Arc” (CBS), then moved to a more historical matriarch – specifically, Mary of Nazareth and Sarah, wife of Abraham – in the miniseries “Jesus” (CBS, 2000) and “In the Beginning” (NBC, 2000), respectively. Her legendary allure also made her a go-to for mature, glamorous and sexually confident women of power, which she essayed in features like “Dangerous Beauty” (1998), where her 16th century courtesan instructed her daughter (Catherine McCormack) in the family business, and “Domino” (2005), which cast her as fashion model Paulene Stone, whose daughter, Domino Harvey, became a bounty hunter. Her versatility allowed her to play both the ruthless head of a black market organ ring in the fourth season of “Nip/Tuck” (FX, 2003-2010), and a kindly 19th century grandmother in “An Old Fashioned Christmas’ (Hallmark Channel, 2008). In 2010, she received the Legion of Honor from French president Nicholas Sarkozy. Bisset co-starred opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor in the 1930s period piece “Dancing on the Edge” (Starz 2013), a miniseries about a black jazz band’s arrival in London society. Her performance as Lady Cremone won Bisset the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, but her win was overshadowed by her strange, meandering acceptance speech, punctuated by long silences. It became the most talked-about moment of the 2014 Golden Globes, including a parody on “Saturday Night Live” (NBC 1975- ).
The above TCM overview can be accessed online here.
Jo Stafford was one of the most popular recording artists in the 1950’s. Her songs such as “You Belong to Me”, “Allentown Jail” and “Shrimp Boats” are still played to-day. She was born in 1917 in California’s San Joaquin Valley. She became the lead female singer with the legendary Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. She left the band in 1944 to go solo and had hit after hit.She was featured in the films “Biloxi Blues” in 1988 and “The Two Jakes” in 1990. Jo Stafford was married to the band leader Paul Weston. She died at the age of 90 in 2008.
Her “Guardian” obituary by Veronica Horwell:
The obituary below, of the singer Jo Stafford, incorrectly attributed a quote that she was “a highly educated folk singer working mostly in other idioms of American music” to Nancy Franklin of the New Yorker.
One female voice reigned over American music in the era between Frank Sinatra’s swooning bobbysoxers in the mid-1940s and Elvis Presley getting their little sisters all shook up in 1957. It was freighted with knowledge of trouble and loss but soared sure and clear; the voice of Jo Stafford, who has died aged 90. She was a diamond, gold and platinum disc seller of 25m records in every genre.
She was what she mocked, the third of four daughters of an Appalachian hill country couple, Anna York and Grover Cleveland Stafford. Jo was born at Lease 35, raw land near Coalinga, California, where the family had followed oilfield roughneck Grover in search of work.
They remained Tennessee in accent and music. Anna played five-string banjo. The older girls taught Jo to sing, and as her voice expanded to an octave and a half in a decade, Anna insisted she train as an operatic coloratura. She managed only five years, for lack of cash. The Stafford Sisters sang on radio and in movie musicals, then Jo went into a group, as the sole female – a short, hungry dumpling in horn-rimmed glasses – among seven male Pied Pipers.
Paul Weston, arranger for Tommy Dorsey’s band, heard their balanced voices with lead Stafford shaping the sound. In 1938 he recruited them for Dorsey’s radio show in New York, a gig that ended when the sponsor heard and hated their scat lyrics. But Dorsey summoned the octet, reduced to a quartet, on tour. “Most of the time you never even saw a bed,” she recalled. “You slept and dressed on the band bus.” After another thousand times around the block in the bus, she made a record, Little Man With a Candy Cigar (1941).
Weston gave her a break. He worked with Bing Crosby at Paramount Pictures, and met songwriter Johnny Mercer, co-founder of Capitol Records. Weston formed an orchestra, adding strings and voices to big band ensembles to create what came to be called mood music. Mercer appointed him Capitol’s music director, and in 1944, after Stafford sang for 26 weeks on Mercer’s radio show, signed her as Capitol’s first contract singer.
She could deliver anything with grace. Nancy Franklin wrote in the New Yorker that she was “a highly educated folk singer working mostly in other idioms of American music”, who unconsciously used both operatic pitch vibrato and country and western volume vibrato. Stafford said she simply concentrated on “thinking the tone just before I make it… The voice is a muscle.”
Her first hit was a freak. She was in a studio corridor when Joe “Country” Washburn discovered he was minus a vocalist to record Tim-Tay-Shun (1947). Hidden behind the alias Cinderella G Stump, she sold a couple of million, without royalties. She otherwise chose in the 1940s from material laid before her (90 of her singles charted) or took advice from Weston. He did a full orchestral accompaniment in 1946 for The Nightingale, a song Anna had taught Jo. He retrieved the religious duet Whispering Hope from an old phonograph disc – Jo’s 1949 version, with Gordon Macrae.
Stafford was a character player, her own self ignored in the narrative of the number. She avoided live solo performances, initially because of her weight (at more than 13 stone she flopped at her only nightclub booking, New York’s Cafe Martinique, then dieted, achieving photographable size in time to switch from radio to television). She did not have and would not simulate an entertainer’s personality: “I wasn’t driven. I just loved what I did.”
Her engagement was with a microphone in subdued studio light, and through it, with listeners in distant darknesses. Her broadcasts for Radio Luxembourg and Voice of America made her “GI Jo” to US servicemen posted globally. She did record covers of second world war songs – I’ll Be Seeing You and No Love, No Nothin’ – but neither was released until 1959.
Stafford followed Weston when he left Capitol for Columbia in 1950, which subjected her to the novelty regime of Mitch Miller. At best, he supplied her with VistaVision scenarios, mostly recorded from 1950 to 1952 – You Belong to Me, Jambalaya, and Shrimp Boats. He also required her to cut turkeys – Chow Willy, and later Underneath the Overpass (1957). Her fine peak albums – American Folk Songs (1950) and Jo+Jazz (1960) – went unpromoted, and she was relieved to give up the 15 minutes of shivers that preceded TV broadcasts.
Her marriage to Pied Piper John Huddleston over, she converted to Catholicism and married Weston in 1952. They had two children, Tim and Amy, and settled in Beverly Hills.
Stafford and Weston got their revenge on Miller anyway. After recording his worst, she and the band reprised them as they deserved, with Stafford squarely missing each note. Then, at a Columbia sales convention in 1957, Weston dined with A&R staff in a restaurant with a bad piano player. Weston mimicked the pianist’s meandering hands and crumbling thirds. The A&R people imagined an album of this ineptitude – Paul would be “Jonathan Edwards”, Jo his chanteuse wife “Darlene”.
The resulting discs – The Original Piano Artistry of Jonathan Edwards (1957) and its sequels – were bestsellers, even after Time magazine outed their perpetrators. Jo admired Darlene’s quartertones and the fifth beat she added to a 4/4 bar for “an extra stride”.”She’s a nice lady from Trenton, New Jersey, and she does her best,” said Jo of Darlene, otherwise “the only singer to get off the A train between A and B-flat”. The album Jonathan and Darlene in Paris won Stafford’s only Grammy – for comedy in 1960.
The following year the couple spent the summer in London, recording the last series of the Jo Stafford Show for the ATV network.
When in the late 1960s, her voice no longer met her standards – the red needle on the meter must not flicker – she retired, performing one last time, safely in a group, at a tribute to Frank Sinatra (and again as Darlene, for charity). Until his death in 1996, Weston managed the couple’s Corinthian label, which reissued their recordings. Darlene’s pitch was even more challenged when digitally remastered.
Stafford’s offduty passion was the history of the second world war. She knew where the boys had been. A naval officer once contradicted her on a detail of a Pacific action, saying: “Madam, I was there!” A few days later he wrote to apologise. He had consulted his logs. He was wrong.
She is survived by her two children, both of whom went into the music business.
· Josephine Elizabeth Stafford, singer, born November 12 1917; died July 13 2008
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Gary Crosby was born in 1933 in Los Angeles. He was the son of Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee. He performed on radio and television with his father and three brothers. He made his movie debut in “Mardi Gras” with Pat Boone in 1958. His other films include “Holiday for Lovers” and “A Private’s Affair”. Gary Crosby died in 1995.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
The stocky-framed, lookalike son of singing legend Bing Crosby who had that same bemused, forlorn look, fair hair and jug ears, Gary was the eldest of four sons born to the crooner and his first wife singer/actress Dixie Lee. The boys’ childhood was an intensely troubled one with all four trying to follow in their father’s incredibly large footsteps as singers and actors. As youngsters, they briefly appeared with Bing as themselves in Star Spangled Rhythm (1942) and Duffy’s Tavern (1945). Gary proved to be the most successful of the four, albeit a minor one. As a teen, he sang duet on two songs with his famous dad, “Sam’s Song” and “Play a Simple Melody,” which became the first double-sided gold record in history. He and his brothers also formed their own harmonic singing group “The Crosby Boys” in subsequent years but their success was fleeting. Somewhere in the middle of all this Gary managed to attend Stanford University, but eventually dropped out.
Gary concentrated a solo acting career in the late 50s and appeared pleasantly, if unobtrusively, in such breezy, lightweight fare as Mardi Gras (1958), Holiday for Lovers(1959), A Private’s Affair (1959), Battle at Bloody Beach (1961) (perhaps his best role),Operation Bikini (1963), and Girl Happy (1965) with Elvis Presley. Making little leeway, he turned to TV series work. The Bill Dana Show (1963) and Adam-12 (1968) as Officer Ed Wells kept him occasionally busy in the 60s and early 70s, also guesting on such shows as Twilight Zone (1959) and Matlock (1986). Getting only so far as a modestly-talented Crosby son, Gary’s erratic career was hampered in large part by a long-standing alcohol problem that began in his teens. In 1983, Gary published a “Daddy Dearest” autobiography entitled “Going My Own Way,” an exacting account of the severe physical and emotional abuse he and his brothers experienced at the hands of his overly stern and distant father, who had died back in 1977. Mother Dixie, an alcoholic and recluse, died long before of ovarian cancer in 1952. All four boys went on to have lifelong problems with the bottle, with Gary hitting bottom several times. The tell-all book estranged Gary from the rest of his immediate family and did nothing to rejuvenate his stalled career. Two of his brothers, Dennis Crosby and Lindsay Crosby, later committed suicide. Gary was divorced from his third wife and was about to marry a fourth when he learned he had lung cancer. He died on August 24, 1995, two months after the diagnosis.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
