Suzanne Pleshette obituary in “The Guardian” in 2008.
Her Guardian obituary by Ronald Bergan:
There are two distinct memories of Suzanne Pleshette, who has died from lung cancer aged 70: the sensual, dark-haired beauty of 1960s movie melodramas, and the more mature and light-hearted but still sexy wife in The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78) on television.
In the former part of her career, Pleshette, elegantly tailored, would often play rich, young and independent girls. For example, in her second feature, Rome Adventure (1962), she is a librarian, dismissed for stocking a “risqué” book, who takes off for a touristy Rome to find romance. Among the ruins, she finally opts for the American art student Troy Donahue over the Latin charms of Rossano Brazzi.
In 1964, Pleshette married blond, blue-eyed teen idol Donahue, though the union only lasted a year. During that time, the couple co-starred in Raoul Walsh’s western, A Distant Trumpet (1964). In it, Donahue is an expressionless lieutenant defending a fort who falls in love with Pleshette, the wife of his commanding officer, both stars being rather too 1960s in looks to be convincing characters of the Old West.
While the career of Donahue, who had made his reputation in “generation gap” dramas of the early 60s, went on the slide, Pleshette’s career bloomed. Apart from A Distant Trumpet, she appeared in two other films in 1964, Fate is the Hunter, as an air hostess, the sole survivor of a plane crash, and the absurd Youngblood Hawke as a publisher’s editor nurturing the writing talent of a truck driver.
Pleshette was born in New York City: her mother was a dancer, and her father a stage manager. She graduated from Manhattan’s high school of performing arts and then attended Syracuse University, before appearing on Broadway in a small role in Compulsion (1957). She would return to Broadway four more times, most notably in The Miracle Worker (1959), replacing Anne Bancroft in the role of Annie Sullivan, teacher of the blind and deaf Helen Keller. It was her greatest acting achievement.
A Rage to Live (1965) gave Pleshette the chance to pull out all the stops as a “nymphomaniac”, whose promiscuity only leads to loneliness and despair. However, as well as she did, only the likes of Barbara Stanwyck or Susan Hayward would have brought enough flamboyance and passion to rescue the film.
In Nevada Smith (1966), opposite Steve McQueen, Pleshette, as a backwoods girl whose beauty is still apparent behind the grime of a swamp, has a good death scene after being bitten by a snake. Among her more cheerful roles were those in three innocuous Walt Disney productions: The Ugly Dachshund (1966), though she is upstaged by dogs; The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967), in which, as a singer in a saloon, she is the nearest thing one can get to sexy in a Disney movie; and the love interest in Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968).
Parallel to her feature film work, which began in the Jerry Lewis movie The Geisha Boy (1958), Pleshette was active on television from 1957, with roles in Have Gun – Will Travel, Naked City, Route 66, Ben Casey and a 1960 episode (directed by Paul Henreid) in Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This led to Hitchcock casting her in The Birds (1963), in which she is significantly contrasted with the “cool blonde” Tippi Hedren. As a warm, garden-loving schoolteacher, she is one of the first fatal victims of the murderous birds, dying while protecting a child.
· Suzanne Pleshette, actor, born January 31 1937; died January 19 2008
Her Guardian obituary can be accessed on-line here.
Nine years later, Pleshette played a very different schoolteacher in The Bob Newhart Show. After having made several scintillating appearances on Johnny Carson’s talk show, in which she made ample use of her celebrated contralto speaking voice, Pleshette was offered the role of Emily Hartley, the smart, funny, attractive “career woman” wife of psychologist Bob (deadpan comedian Bob Newhart), the stable centre of the crazy happenings in the Hartley household. Unusually for American sitcoms of the period, the couple had no children (like Pleshette herself), and they shared a double bed in which they discussed (and solved) the problems of the day.
After the show ended, Pleshette continued to be active on television, her last appearances being in three episodes of Will and Grace (2002-04), playing the estranged mother of Megan Mullally’s character Karen Walker.
In 2006, Pleshette underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer, subsequently catching pneumonia and dying of respiratory failure. Pleshette’s second marriage was to Texas oilman Tim Gallagher, from 1968 until his death in 2000, and then to actor Tom Poston, with whom she had appeared in the Broadway comedy The Golden Fleecing over 40 years previously. He died last year.
Michel Ray was born in 1944 in England to an English mother and a Brazilian father. He made his film debut in “The Divided Heart” in 1954. In 1956 he went to America to make “The Brave One” and “The Tin Star” amongst others. In 1962 he was featured in “Lawrence of Arabia”. He ceased acting in 1964 and became a stockbroker.
His IMDB entry:
He was born into a wealthy family having an English mother and a Brazilian father. He was educated in Switzerland where he learnt to ski. His parents were friends of producerMichael Balcon who was looking for a boy who could ski for his 1954 film The Divided Heart (1954). Young Michel fitted the part perfectly and started a film career which culminated in the role of Faraj in Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
This project took eighteen months and caused Michel to look at the affect film work was having on his education. He decided to quit acting. He subsequently attended Harvard where he read business studies. After university he joined White Weld & Co moving on to NM Rothschild and Credit Suisse First Boston. In his London city career in investment banking he made his first millions.
In 1995 he joined Nikko Securities and in 1998 became the first non-Japanese member of the main board. Meantime he had continued his passion for winter sports and was a member of the British Olympic ski team at the 1968 Winter games in Grenoble, France.
The Divided Heart, poster, US poster, from top: Armin Dahlen, Yvonne Mitchell, Michel Ray, 1954. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
He was in the team again in ’72 and ’76 competing on these occasions in the luge. He had also married a childhood friend Charlene, daughter of Alfred “Freddie” Heineken. Her mother was Lucille Cummins daughter of a Kentucky Bourbon maker.
Her father Freddie died in January 2002 and left his controlling interest, 50.05%, in the Heineken brewing empire to the couple. It is estimated at three billion pounds sterling or four point two billion dollars. Michel’s life story is more glamorous than many a Hollywood fiction.
As a teenager, Michel de Carvalho was living every boy’s fantasy. While his friends sat in school, 17-year-old Michel was a movie star, with a coveted role in Sir David Lean’s epic, Lawrence Of Arabia.
Between breaks in filming, he caroused through the fleshpots of Beirut with Hollywood stars Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif, pursued by hordes of adoring females. The film won seven Oscars and would go down in cinema history. Michel, using the stage name Michel Ray, seemed destined for fame.
Many child actors would let the experience go to their heads and veer off the rails, eventually disappearing from view. But Buckinghamshire-born Michel has continued to thrive and enjoy life to the full.
Now aged 68, he is still living out a male fantasy – as a financier with a £5.5 billion fortune and limitless supplies of beer. He did it by deciding to abandon acting on the set of the classic film so that he could enrol at Harvard University.
He also went on to compete in two Winter Olympics as a skier and tobogganer. And he married the love of his life, Charlene Heineken, now 58, the daughter of the late brewery magnate Freddie Heineken. In 2002, the couple inherited the £4 billion controlling stake in the Heineken empire.
The shares have surged and with the recent acquisition of the Tiger beer brand the group’s value has increased by more than £1 billion.
Now chairman of Citi Private Bank’s business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Michel commutes between London, Washington and Holland. ‘I’ve always believed work hard, play hard,’ he says. ‘Life has never been boring – luckily.’
Approaching their 30th wedding anniversary, the couple undoubtedly lead an enviable life, but their lifestyle has never been ostentatious.
Their wealth eclipses that of Sir Philip Green and his wife Tina, as well as the Bransons and the Rausings, but the couple have never appeared in glossy photo spreads or hosted lavish public parties.’I partied in Beirut with the greatest actors of the age’
Instead, they concentrated on raising their five children in England, away from the glare of publicity. But later this month they may be tempted out for a rare appearance – to celebrate the re-release of the film that could so easily have launched Michel into a Hollywood career 50 years ago.
In the biopic of T. E. Lawrence, Michel played Farraj, one of the First World War hero’s two teenage followers. ‘They offered me the choice of the two roles – one dies in quicksand, the other is blown up,’ Michel recalls, speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday about his extraordinary life.
‘I said, ‘‘Which one lasts longer?’’ And they said the one that gets blown up by a detonator near the railway line. So I took that one, because it paid more.
‘Now whenever I tell anyone I was in Lawrence Of Arabia they say, “Oh, were you the one who went down in the quicksand?” And no one can ever remember the other one.’
Sands of time: As a child actor, Michel de Carvalho played the role of Arab boy Farraj opposite Peter O’Toole in the classic film Lawrence Of Arabia in 1962
In fact, Michel appears in one of the film’s most iconic scenes – as he and Lawrence stride into the officers’ mess in Cairo to announce the audacious capture of Aqaba. ‘We’re thirsty,’ Lawrence announces, dusty and dishevelled. ‘We want two large glasses of lemonade . . . there’s been a lot of killing, one way or another.’
During the 18-month shoot in 1961 and 1962 Michel became acquainted with some of the most talented actors of his age – as well as the countless women who pursued them. ‘The parties happened on rest and relaxation days in Beirut. Quite often I went with Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif – and that was super fun,’ he says.’At school I got so much fan mail’
Camel-riding proved more of a challenge. ‘In the beginning it wasn’t pleasant,’ Michel says. ‘You are sitting mostly side-saddle, with the hump coming up in the middle and you’re not really supposed to grip it. On one occasion I was on a camel which suddenly saw its stable – and it bolted for home, which was terrifying.
‘Years later, friends of mine had a 50th birthday party in Egypt. We went up and down the Nile. On one day they organised a camel race. Needless to say, I won.’
‘We couldn’t possibly discuss the fun in an elegant Sunday newspaper… they were the superstars and I was the bag carrier. But even superstars can only handle so much. And then the bag carrier…’
Looking back, Michel appears incredulous at his teenage decision to give up acting on the set of one of the greatest movies. ‘I said – using a huge swear word – ‘‘What am I doing here in the Arabian desert with all these funny people, superstars, Anthony Quinn, Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Jack Hawkins and the rest?’’ Where are my friends? This is a weird life. And then, almost simultaneously I became self- conscious about acting. And I just couldn’t get over my self-consciousness. It was the worst decision I ever made.
Multi-talented: Michel de Carvalho was part of the British Olympic luge team. Here he is pictured at Heathrow Airport before a flight to Japan, where he took part in the Winter Olympics at Sapporo
‘I never usually talk about Lawrence Of Arabia, but I was discussing it with someone last night and they said it wasn’t the worst decision because where would I be today? Some ageing B actor, looking for TV adverts.
‘But I should have stretched out the acting career a bit – maybe until 30.’ Born to a Brazilian diplomat father and an English mother in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, in 1944, Michel fell into acting at the age of ten. His father had died when he was very young and his mother married again, to a wealthy leather merchant.
The family entertained many illustrious figures to dinner in their London home – one was the famous producer Sir Michael Balcon, who needed a young boy who could ski, to star in his film, The Divided Heart. Initially Michel’s mother, Annie, was opposed to the idea of her son appearing on screen. He recalls: ‘But Sir Michael said it was only three months and who knows what will happen – this door has opened, why would you close it?’
Michel was a hit and film offers flooded in. Using his two Christian names as a stage name, Michel Ray was the Daniel Radcliffe of his day – going on to great acclaim in films such as The Brave One and The Tin Star.
Between films, Michel attended a boarding school in Switzerland, honing a gift for languages and developing his passion for skiing.
Rich lives: Michel de Carvalho with his wife Charlene, the Heineken heiress
Aged 17, his star reached a peak with Lawrence Of Arabia. ‘I had massive attention at school,’ he says. ‘I got so much fan mail. I never get that any more – as a banker, you get hate mail.’
Five years after he walked away from acting, just as he was about to take up a graduate place at Harvard Business School, his life took another twist when he was offered the chance to become a member of the British ski team at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France.
‘It wasn’t so much for my skill as for my ability to pay the plane fare,’ says Michel modestly.
His mother was not keen on the idea. She had been relieved when he gave up acting and wanted him to get serious about making a living. ‘I wish I had kept the telegram she sent,’ he says. ‘Every second word was “bum”. It said, “From film bum to ski bum – if you make this totally stupid decision, you will be completely cut off.” So I made the completely stupid decision.’
He delayed taking up his place at Harvard to compete. ‘I told a huge porkie pie to Harvard – I can’t tell you what it was in case they take away my diploma.’
His mother need not have worried. He duly graduated from Harvard and embarked on a career in banking. But he had just begun his second job, at NM Rothschild, when he was asked to join the 1972 GB Olympic team once again – this time in the luge, the fastest and most dangerous style of tobogganing. Nervously, he asked his new boss for time off to compete in Japan. ‘I was sitting at my desk and the internal phone rang. A voice said, “Will you pop up?’’ It was Eddie Rothschild, the chairman of the bank.
‘I went upstairs and Eddie rummaged in his pockets, pulled out £200 – which was my weekly salary – and said, “Let me remind you, young man, in this bank, England comes first.” ’
Michel competed in the luge with his best friend Jeremy Palmer-Tomkinson – the uncle of socialite Tara Palmer- Tomkinson. ‘In the first week of training, my entire body was dark blue,’ he said. ‘When you are in the double luge you really are just fodder – I was the little guy and Jeremy was the big heavy guy on top. In the Japan Olympics, we were really just clowns.’
In 1983, when he was in his late 30s, Michel married Charlene Heineken. ‘Our families both had houses in St Moritz,’ he says. ‘I was ten years older than her so it wasn’t what you would call love at first sight – certainly not on her side.’I met the girl of my dreams, complete with free beer’
‘I always drank Heineken. But the problem was Heineken was the most expensive beer. So when I met my wife I thought, “This is fantastic, I’ll have free beer.” I didn’t realise then that marriage is not just about free beer.’
The couple honeymooned in the Caribbean but suffered a shock on their return. In November 1983, Charlene’s father was kidnapped in Amsterdam and held for ransom for three weeks.
‘It was a baptism of fire,’ says Michel. ‘I was just not prepared for something like that. My father-in-law had no other family but my mother-in-law, my wife and me. Luckily, it all ended well. The ransom was paid and the kidnappers all went to jail.’
In 2002, Freddie Heineken died and Charlene inherited her father’s stake in the family business – which transformed her and Michel, overnight, into one of Britain’s wealthiest couples. Today, Charlene and Michel still play a key role in the business.
Sitting in the desert with Peter O’Toole, Michel could little have dreamt how his life would turn out. ‘I never planned my life,’ he says. ‘The good lord has been kind. If you have a bit of luck, you can do quite a lot. But looking back, it was probably a mistake quitting acting.
‘ Looking back, someone should have said to me, “No, stay with that.” ’
The 50th Anniversary 4K Restoration of Lawrence Of Arabia is in cinemas across the UK from November 23. The Empire Leicester Square will have special preview screenings from next Saturday.
The above “MailOnline” article can also be accessed online here.
2519488 Mac Coy aux poings d\’or: KILLER McCOY, US poster, from left: Brian Donlevy, Mickey Rooney, Ann Blyth, 1947; (add.info.: Affiche du film Mac Coy aux poings d\’or (KILLER McCOY) de Roy Rowland avec Brian Donlevy, Mickey Rooney, Ann Blyth, 1947 ); Everett Collection.2447171 Behind Prison Gates: BEHIND PRISON GATES, standing l-r: Jacqueline Wells, Brian Donlevy, Richard Fiske on poster art, 1939; (add.info.: Affiche du film BEHIND PRISON GATES de Charles Barton avec standing l-r: Jacqueline Wells, Brian Donlevy, Richard Fiske on poster art, 1939); Everett Collection.EVT5783509 STAND BY FOR ACTION, US poster, Robert Taylor, Charles Laughton, Marilyn Maxwell, Brian Donlevy, 1942; (add.info.: STAND BY FOR ACTION, US poster, Robert Taylor, Charles Laughton, Marilyn Maxwell, Brian Donlevy, 1942); Everett Collection.
Brian Donlevy was born in 1901 in Northern Ireland. His parents moved to the U.S. when he was an infant. His breaththrough film role came in 1935 when he was cast with Edward G. Robinson in “Barbary Coast”. He went on to star in “Beau Geste”, “The Great McGinty”, “An American Romance” and “The Miracle of Morgans Creek”. He died in 1972 at the age of 71.
IMDB entry:
It seems that Brian Donlevy started out life as colorfully as any character he ever played on the stage or screen. He lied about his age (he was actually 14) in 1916 so he could join the army. When Gen. John J. Pershing sent American troops to invade Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa–Mexican rebels under Villa’s command raided Columbus, NM, and killed 16 American soldiers and civilians–Donlevy served with that expedition and later, in WW I, was a pilot with the Lafayette Escadrille, a unit of the French Air Force comprised of American and Canadian pilots. His schooling was in Cleveland, OH, but in addition he spent two years at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD. However, he gave up on a military career for the stage. After having landed several smaller roles, he got a part in “What Price Glory” and established himself as a bona fide actor. Later such roles on stage as “Three for One”, “The Milky Way” and “Life Begins at 8:30” gave him the experience to head off to Hollywood. Donlevy began his Hollywood career with the silent film A Man of Quality (1926) and his first talkie was Gentlemen of the Press (1929) (in which he had a bit part). There was a five- to six-year gap before he reappeared on the film scene in 1935 with three pictures: Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935), Another Face(1935) and Barbary Coast (1935), which was his springboard into film history. Receiving rave reviews as “the tough guy all in black”, acting jobs finally began to roll his way. In 1936 he starred in seven films, including Strike Me Pink (1936), in which he played the tough guy to Eddie Cantor‘s sweet bumpkin Eddie Pink. In all, from 1926 to 1969 Donlevy starred in at least 89 films, reprising one of his Broadway roles as a prizefighter in The Milky Way (1940), and had his own television series (which he also produced), Dangerous Assignment (1952). In 1939 he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the sadistic Sgt. Markoff in Paramount’s Beau Geste (1939), its remake of an earlier silent hit. The Great McGinty (1940), a Preston Sturges comedy about a poor homeless slob who makes it to Governor of a state with the mob’s help, is a brilliant character study of a man and the changes he goes through to please himself, those around him and, eventually, the woman he loves. A line in the film, spoken by Mrs. McGinty, seems a fitting description of the majority of roles Brian Donlevy would play throughout his career: “. . . You’re a tough guy, McGinty, not a wrong guy.” Donlevy’s ability to make the roughest edge of any character have a soft side was his calling card. He perfected it and no one has quite mastered it since. He later, in 1944, reprised that role in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944). By 1935 Donlevy was working for 20th Century-Fox and had just completed filming 36 Hours to Kill (1936) when he became engaged to young singer Marjorie Lane, and they married the next year. The marriage produced one child, Judy, but ended in divorce in 1947. It was 19 years before he remarried. In 1966, Bela Lugosi‘s ex-wife Lillian became Mrs. Brian Donlevy, and they were married until his death in 1972. Donlevy had always derived great pleasure from his two diverse interests, gold mining and writing poetry, so it was fitting that after his last film, Pit Stop (1969), he retired to Palm Springs, CA, where he began to write short stories and had his income well supplemented from a prosperous California tungsten mine he owned. Having gone in for throat surgery in 1971 he re-entered the Motion Picture County Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA, on March 10th, 1972. Less than a month later, on April 6, he passed away from cancer.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Jane Byron Dean <McGinty@aol.com>
The above IMDB entry cn also be accessed online her
Nils Asther was born in Denmark in 1897. He was brought up in Sweden. He appeared in Swedish and German silent films from 1918 until 1926. In 1927 he went to Hollywood where he made his first U.S. film “Topsy and Eva”. He made films with Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford. In 1933 he made “The Bitter Tea of General Yen” with Barbara Stanwyck. Between 1935 and 1940 he made films in the U.K. He then returned to Hollywood and made films there until 1949. In 1958 he returned to Sweden where he died in 1981 at the age of 84.
IMDB entry:
Nils Asther was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1897 and raised in Malmö, Sweden, by his wealthy Swedish parents. After attending the Royal Dramatic Theater School in Stockholm, he began his stage career in Copenhagen. His film debut came in 1916 when the director Mauritz Stiller cast him in the lead role (as an aspiring actor, appropriately enough) in the Swedish film Vingarne (1916). After working with Victor Sjöström in Sweden and Michael Curtiz in Germany, Asther moved to Hollywood in 1927, where his exotic looks landed him romantic roles with co-stars such as Greta Garbo, Pola Negri, andJoan Crawford. Although his foreign accent was a hindrance in “talkies”, his Hollywood career continued until 1934 when he was blacklisted for breaking a contract and went to Britain for four years. After his return to Hollywood in 1938, his career declined and by 1949 he was driving a truck. In 1958, he returned to Sweden, where he remained until his death, making occasional appearances in television and on stage.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Lyn Hammond
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
TCM Overview:
Dashing, smooth leading man of late silent films and the first decade of talkies, in the USA from 1927. Tall and often mustachioed, Asther proved a capable and attractive romantic lead opposite Greta Garbo in “The Single Standard” (1929) and Barbara Stanwyck in “The Bitter Tea of General Yen” (1933). He continued playing supporting roles into the 1940s.
2470633 Barbe-bleue: BLUEBEARD, Nils Asther, John Carradine, Ludwig Stossel, Jean Parker (top, left row), 1944; (add.info.: Affiche du film Barbe bleue (BLUEBEARD) de Edgar G.); Everett Collection.
Although younger brother Dean Stockwell is perhaps the better known actor of the two, Guy Stockwell was a seriously handsome, reliable performer over the years, appearing in over 30 films and 200 television shows. The son of singing performer Harry Stockwell andNina Olivette (she also went by the name Betty Veronica), their mother sent both Dean and Guy to an open call for a 1943 Broadway show entitled “The Innocent Voyage,” which was to star famed acting teacher Herbert Berghof. The play needed about a dozen children and, by chance, both boys were cast. Dean went immediately into films for MGM and became a popular post-war child star while Guy had to wait until adulthood before coming into his own. Following high school he attended the University of California where he majored in psychology and philosophy.
Guy started his career off in minor film and TV bits, then was given his big break in 1961 as a regular cast member of the outdoor sea adventure Adventures in Paradise (1959) as first mate to star Gardner McKay. He played the role for one season. Following that in 1963 he became one of 11 performers who made up the company for Richard Boone‘s television anthology series. Guy became a Universal contract player in 1965 and went straight into several standard tales of adventure and intrigue, including The War Lord(1965), Tobruk (1967) and Blindfold (1965). Initially promoted as a dashing Errol Flynntype in swordplay adventures and outdoor epics, the studio had him star in the remake ofGary Cooper‘s French Foreign Legion classic Beau Geste (1966) opposite another film up-and-comer Doug McClure. He co-starred with McClure again, this time as the villain, inThe King’s Pirate (1967) while vying for beauties Jill St. John and Mary Ann Mobley. He also earned the role of Buffalo Bill Cody in a remake of Cooper’s The Plainsman (1966). Playing a villain again in the glossy soaper Banning (1967) with Robert Wagner and Ms. St. John, most of Guy’s high-profile roles came off routine at best and the films failed at the box office. He made his last picture for Universal co-starring with Anthony Franciosain In Enemy Country (1968) before his contract ended.
Guy subsequently gravitated towards the small screen and local stage. He created the Los Angeles Art Theater along the way where he played leading roles in well-received productions of “Hamlet” and his own adaptation of “Crime and Punishment.”. Gaining respect in later years as an acting teacher, he wrote a textbook for actors called Cold Reading Advantage (1991) and taught acting (as an alumnus at the University of California) for two years in their masters program. Subsequent character parts in films were a bit offbeat to say the least, having gained some weight over time. He was also involved in extensive voice-over work.
Married and divorced three times, he had two children, Doug and Victoria, by first wife Susan; an adopted son, Kerry, by second wife Sandy; and had several stepchildren by his marriage to third wife Olga. Guy suffered from diabetes in later years and died of complications in 2002. He was 68.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Sword Of Zorro, poster, (aka THE THREE SWORDS OF ZORRO, aka LE TRE SPADE DE ZORRO), Italian poster, Guy Stockwell, 1963. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
Carlos Thompson was born in Buenos Aires the Argentine to Swiss-German parents in 1923. He began his career in 1954 in Hollywood films such as “The Flame and the Flesh” with Lana Turner and Pier Angeli and “Port Afrique” with Yvonne de Carlo. In the sixties he moved to German and concentrated on making European films. He also became an established author. He was married to the actress Lilli Palmer. Carlos Thompson died in 1990 in Buenos Aires at the age of 67.
“Wikipedia” entry:
Of GermanSwiss descent, he played leading roles on stage and in films in Argentina. He went to Hollywood in the 1950s and was typically cast as a European womanizer.
He moved to Europe and appeared in a large number of German films. He was chiefly known to English speakers for his appearance as Carlos Varela in the 1963 ITC Entertainment series The Sentimental Agent.
In the late 1960s, Thompson left acting to become a writer and TV producer.
His first success on the European book market was The assassination of Winston Churchill (1969), a refutation of allegations byDavid Irving (Accident. The Death of General Sikorski, 1967) and the German playwright Rolf Hochhuth (Soldiers, premièred in the UK in 1968, London) that war time premier Winston Churchill had a part in the death of Polish General Władysław Sikorski, who perished in an air plane crash at Gibraltar on July 4, 1943, allegedly due to sabotage. Carlos Thompson married German-born actress Lilli Palmer shortly after her divorce from Rex Harrison in 1957. They remained married until her death in 1986. Four years after his wife’s death, Thompson committed suicide in Buenos Aires by a gunshot to his head.
The above “Wikipedia” entry can also be accessed online here.
“Hollywood, or at least MGM, rather underestimated Howard Keel. He was launched as a star in “Anne Get Your Gun” but then shuffled off sometimes into second-leads or into second features. He was given boorish parts to play – modelled on his role in ‘Annie’ -or stood up as the conventional leading-man prop. That he did so well despite this was due to the fact that this was the heyday of screen musicals, many of which he carried to success almost single-handedly. There was no other big-voiced baritone in films at the time – at his best he outclassed all the others of like ilk – Lanza, Eddy, Allan Jones. His voice was warm and lusty. He had a fetching grin and though few of his parts called upon him to do more than swagger he did it with a disarming ease. In these days when the MGM musical is seen in all it’s achievement
Howard Keel was born in 1919 in Gillespie, Illinois. In 1947 he came to post-War London and captivated audiences with his stage performance as “Curley” in “Oaklaholma”. While in Britian he made his film debut in “The Small Voice” opposite Valerie Hobson. He won a contract with MGM starting with “Annie Get Your Gun”. He went on to make “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”, “Kismet” “Kiss Me Kate” and “Rose Marie”. For Warner Brothers he made “Calamity Jane” with Doris Day. Witn the decline oif movie musicals in the late 50’s he began singing in supper clubs across the U.S. He had a major career revival in the 1980’s with his role in the long running “Dallas”. Howard Keel died in 2004 at the age of 85.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Tough, virile, wavy-haired and ruggedly handsome with trademark forlorn-looking brows that added an intriguing touch of vulnerability to his hard outer core, actor Howard Duff and his wife-at-the-time, actress Ida Lupino, were one of Hollywood’s premiere film couples during the 1950s “Golden Age”. Prior to that, Duff had relationships with a number of the cinema’s most dazzling leading ladies, including Ava Gardner (just prior to her marriage to musician Artie Shaw) and Gloria DeHaven.
Duff’s talent first manifested itself on radio as Dashiell Hammett‘s popular private eye “Sam Spade” (1946-1950), and eventually extended to include stage, film and TV. While never considered a top-tier movie star and, despite his obvious prowess, never considered for any acting awards, Howard Duff was an undeniably strong good guy and potent heavy but perhaps lacked the requisite charisma or profile to move into the ranks of a Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas or Robert Mitchum. His career spanned over four decades.
His full name was Howard Green Duff and he was born in Bremerton, Washington on November 24, 1913. Growing up in and around the Seattle area, he attended Roosevelt High School where he played basketball. It was here that he also found an outlet acting in school plays and, following graduation, studied drama. He eventually became an acting member of the Repertory Playhouse in Seattle. Military service interrupted his early career and he served with the U.S. Army Air Force’s radio service from 1941 to 1945. Upon his discharge, he returned to his acting pursuits and won the role of “Sam Spade” on NBC Radio in the role Humphrey Bogart made famous in The Maltese Falcon (1941).Lurene Tuttle played his altruistic secretary “Effie” on the series. He eventually left the program when his film career settled in and Stephen Dunne took over the radio voice of the detective in 1950 for its final season.
Duff’s post-war movie career started completely on the right foot at Universal with the hard-hitting film noir Brute Force (1947), in which he received good notices as an ill-fated cellmate to Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford and others. Quite well-known for his radio voice by this time, he was given special billing in the movie’s credits as “Radio’s Sam Spade”. This was followed by equally vital and volatile performances in the prescient semi-documentary-styled police drama The Naked City (1948) and in Arthur Miller‘s taut family drama All My Sons (1948) starring Lancaster, again, and Edward G. Robinson.
After such a strong showing, Howard career went into a period of moviemaking in which his films were more noted for its entertainment and rousing action than as character-driven pieces. A number of them were routine westerns that paired him opposite some of Hollywood’s loveliest ladies: Red Canyon (1949) with Ann Blyth, Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949) with Yvonne De Carlo and The Lady from Texas (1951) with Mona Freeman. Other adventure-oriented flicks that more or less came and went included Spaceways(1953), Tanganyika (1954), The Yellow Mountain (1954), Flame of the Islands (1956),Blackjack Ketchum, Desperado (1956) (title role), The Broken Star (1956) and Sierra Stranger (1957). Howard also began appearing infrequently on the stage in the early 1950s with such productions as “Season in the Sun” (1952) and “Anniversary Waltz” (1954).
Those films that rose above the standard included gritty top-billed roles in Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949), Illegal Entry (1949), Shakedown (1950), Spy Hunt (1950) and Woman in Hiding (1950), the last a film noir which paired him with Ida Lupino for the first time. Here, he plays the hero who saves Lupino from a murdering husband (Stephen McNally). In 1951, he married Ms. Lupino, already a well-established star at Warner Bros., who was coming into her own recently as a director. The couple had one daughter, Bridget Duff, born in 1952. Lupino and Duff co-starred in four hard-boiled film dramas during the 1950s — Jennifer (1953), Private Hell 36 (1954), Women’s Prison (1955) and While the City Sleeps (1956). The demise of the studio-guided contract system had an effect on Howard’s film career and offers started drying up in the late 1950s.
Fortunately, he found just as wide an appeal on TV, appearing in a number of dramatic showcases for Science Fiction Theatre (1955), Lux Video Theatre (1950) and Climax!(1954). And, in a change of pace, the married couple decided to go for laughs by starring together in the TV series Mr. Adams and Eve (1957). Here, they played gregarious husband-and-wife film stars “Howard Adams” and “Eve Drake”. Many of the scripts, though broadly exaggerated for comic effect, were reportedly based on a few of their own real-life experiences. They also guest-starred in an entertaining hour-long episode of theThe Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957) in 1959 with the two couples inadvertently booked at the same vacant lodge, together. The show ends up a battle-of-the sexes, free-for-all with the two gals scheming to add a little romance to what has essentially become a fishing vacation for the guys. The 1960s bore more fruit on TV than in film. Sans Lupino, Duff went solo as nightclub owner “Willie Dante” in the tongue-in-cheek adventure seriesDante (1960), which lasted less than a season. A few years later, the veteran co-starred with handsome rookie Dennis Cole in what is perhaps his best-remembered series, the police drama Felony Squad (1966), which was filmed in and around Los Angeles. Duff directed one of those episodes, having directed several episodes of the silly sitcom Camp Runamuck (1965), a year or so earlier. In between series work were guest assignments on such popular primetime shows as Bonanza (1959), Twilight Zone (1959), Burke’s Law(1963) and Combat! (1962).
The marriage of Ida and Howard did not last, however, and the famous married couple separated in 1966 after 15 years of marriage. Ida and Howard didn’t officially divorce, however, until 1984. Howard later married a non-professional, Judy Jenkinson, who survived him. While much of Howard’s work in later years was standard, if unmemorable, every now and then he would demonstrate the fine talent he was. A couple of his better film performances came as a sex-minded, booze-swilling relative in A Wedding (1978) and as Dustin Hoffman‘s attorney in the Oscar-winning drama Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). He also enjoyed a villainous role in the short-lived series Flamingo Road (1980) and had a lengthy stint on Knots Landing (1979) during the 1984-1985 season. Duff died at age 76 of a heart attack, on July 8, 1990, in Santa Barbara, California.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
James MacArthur was born in 1937 in Los Angeles. He is the adopted son of the great stage actress Helen Hayes and her husband playwright Charles MacArthur. He made his stage debut as a boy actor in 1949 in “The Corn Is Green”. He made his film debut with the major role in the 1856 movie “The Young Stranger” directed by John Frankenheimer. He won a Disney contract and starred in such populasr favourites as “The Light in the Forest”, “Kidnapped”, “Third Man on the Mountain” and “Swiss Family Robinson”. Throughout the 1960’s he was featured in routine films with the exception of “Spencer’s Mountain” with Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara and in 1968 “Hang E’m High” with Clint Eastwood. That same year he began a twelve year stint on television in the long running and very popular “Hawaii 5 0” with Jack Lrod as Steve McGarrett and MacArthur as his trusty sidekick Danno. After the series ended he made some television guest appearances but then virtually retired fromacting. James MacArthur died in 2010 at the age of 73.
His “Independent” obituary:
The boyish-looking actor James MacArthur found his greatest fame as Detective Danny Williams in the television crime series Hawaii Five-O, a worldwide hit full of dramatic explosions and car chases, aided and abetted by swaying palm trees and turquoise-blue wave
The island law-enforcer was second-in-command to the self-righteous, humourless Detective Steve McGarrett (played by Jack Lord), head of the Five-O group, based at the Iolani Palace, in Honolulu, as part of the Hawaiian State Police. On arresting the criminals at the end of episodes, McGarrett would bark: “Book ’em, Danno!” MacArthur recalled three years ago: “It wasn’t anything we really thought about at first, but the phrase just took off and caught the public’s imagination.”
As well as playing the boss on screen, Lord firmly set himself up as the “star” of the series, which ran from 1968 to 1980, although MacArthur baled out a year before the final run. With a financial stake in the programme, Lord insisted that all other cast members were simply “featured guests” and only allowed MacArthur a credit preceded by the word “with”, not “co-starring”.
The fair, curly haired actor was the co-star – but was simply pleased to find success after years of roles in mostly forgettable films. One of his better big-screen parts was as Fritz, one of the sons of the shipwrecked family, in the Disney picture Swiss Family Robinson (1960). He also gave Hayley Mills her first screen kiss, in the light-hearted romance The Truth About Spring (1965).
Born in Los Angeles in 1937, MacArthur was adopted at the age of seven months by the actress Helen Hayes and her playwright husband, Charles MacArthur – who co-wrote The Front Page – and brought up on the bank of the Hudson River in Nyack, New York. His godmother was the actress Lillian Gish. He attended the city’s Allen-Stevenson School, New York, and the Solebury School, New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he excelled in basketball, football, baseball – and drama.
By then, he had professional acting experience. He had appeared with his mother aged 10 in a play in the Theatre Guild of the Air radio series (1948). A year later, he made his stage debut as Will Hughes in the Emlyn Williams play The Corn is Green, at the Olney Theatre, Maryland. Further stage appearances followed.
MacArthur’s screen career began promisingly, with the role of the troubled teenager Hal Ditmar in “Deal a Blow” (1955), a play in the television series Climax! He reprised it for the 1957 film version, The Young Stranger – earning him a Society of Film and Television Arts (now Bafta) nomination as Most Promising Newcomer – before studying for a history degree at Harvard University.
During summer vacations, MacArthur acted in Disney films. He played a young man who had been raised by a native American chief in The Light in the Forest (1958); Rudi Matt, aiming to climb the peak that killed his father, in Third Man on the Mountain (1959); and David Balfour in Kidnapped (1960), based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, before Swiss Family Robinson (1960) came along.
MacArthur also took his one and only Broadway role, as Aaron Jablonski in the comedy Invitation to a March (Music Box Theatre, 1960-61), written by Arthur Laurents, with incidental music by Stephen Sondheim. Jane Fonda was in the cast and MacArthur’s performance won him the 1961 Theatre World Award as Best New Actor. A string of television plays during this period was followed by character roles in programmes such as The Untouchables (1961), Burke’s Law (1963), The Virginian (1965), Tarzan (1967) and Bonanza (1967).
Other film roles included that of a doctor in The Interns (1962), Henry Fonda’s eldest son in Spencer’s Mountain (1963) – based on the novel later developed into The Waltons on television – the spoiled son of a wealthy businessman joining Filipino commandos fighting the Japanese in Cry of Battle (1963), Ensign Ralston in the Cold War submarine drama The Bedford Incident (1965), Lieutenant Weaver in Battle of the Bulge (1965) and a travelling preacher in the low-budget Spaghetti Western Hang ’em High (1968), starring Clint Eastwood and written and produced by Leonard Freeman. Then, Freeman created Hawaii Five-O. Watching a pilot that was screened for a test audience, he considered Tim O’Kelly too young for the role of Danny Williams and offered it to MacArthur.
The actor invested his immense earnings from the programme in real estate, making him very wealthy by the time he left it in 1979. “I grew bored,” he explained. “The stories became more bland and predictable, and presented less and less challenge to me as an actor.”
Although MacArthur made guest appearances in Murder, She Wrote (1984) and The Love Boat (four roles, 1979-85), most of his later roles were on stage. During his television screen career, his mother appeared with him in episodes of Hawaii Five-O (1975) and The Love Boat (1980).
MacArthur returned to his most famous role when he played Danny Williams as the new governor of the isands in the 1997 television film Hawaii Five-O. Jack Lord was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and close to death, but other previous cast members, Kam Fong, Kono and Herman Wedemeyer, returned as the detectives Chin Ho Kelly, Zulu and Duke, teaming up with a new Five-O team to search for the culprit when Governor Dan Williams is shot.
At the premiere of a new television version of Hawaii Five-O in the United States earlier this month, MacArthur sent the message: “I’m looking forward to making an appearance inthe new show when the time is right and I can’t wait to see what the writers have in store for me.” He did not live to see that.
His first two marriages, which ended in divorce, were to the actors Joyce Bulifant and Melody Patterson. He is survived by his third wife, the golf teacher and LPGA tour player HB Duntz, whom he met through his own interest in playing golf. MacArthur had three children from his first and third marriages, but the identity of his daughter Juliette’s mother has never been revealed.
James Gordon MacArthur, actor: born Los Angeles 8 December 1937; married 1958 Joyce Bulifant (marriage dissolved 1967; one son, one daughter), 1970 Melody Patterson (marriage dissolved 1975), 1984 Helen Beth Duntz (one son), and one daughter; died Jacksonville, Florida 28 October 2010.
The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Frankie Avalon was born in 1940 in Philadelphia. He became a teenage pop singer along with Bobby Rydell and Fabian. In the early sixties he starred in a series if “beach” movies with Annette Funicello starting with “Beach Party”. He was featured in “The Alamo” with John Wayne in 1960 and “The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”.
“Pompadoured Frankie Avalon became a hit recording artist (with two Number 1 Billboard songs ‘Venus’ and ‘Why’) and pop idol while still a teen. Unlike many of his contemporaries he actually managed to parlay his juke-box fame into a successful movie career” – Barry Monush in “The Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors” (2003).
TCM overview:
A pop crooner and teen idol during the late 1950s, singer Frankie Avalon transformed into a movie star via a string of surf-and-sand musicals in the 1960s like “Beach Party” (1963) and “Muscle Beach Party” (1964). Slight of stature and build but handsome and charismatic in an eminently safe and approachable way, Avalon wooed teenage girls with light romantic tunes like “Venus” and “Why,” both of which shot to the top of the charts. When rock and roll took over the music business in the 1960s, he shifted fulltime to films, where he teamed with Annette Funicello for the silly but watchable beach party films. In ensuing decades, he was a familiar face on television and the occasional film, most notably 1978’s “Grease” as the Teen Angel, and always happy to revisit the nostalgia of his career for new audiences. If his body of work was lightweight, it was also well loved, which ensured Avalon’s place in pop culture history.
Born Francis Thomas Avallone in South Philadelphia, PA on Sept. 18, 1939, Frankie Avalon was the son of Nicholas and Mary Avallone and brother to older sister Theresa Avallone. From an early age, he displayed a genuine talent for music, but as a trumpeter, not a singer. Having learned the instrument from his father, he quickly developed into something of a child prodigy, playing at clubs and on television while still in grade school. A performance at a private party for singer Al Martino led to an appearance on “The Jackie Gleason Show” (DuMont/CBS, 1949-1957) and a 1954 record, “Trumpet Sorrento,” for X Records, a subsidiary of RCA/Victor. By the time he had reached his teens, he was performing regularly in a local group called Rocco and the Saints, which featured one Robert Ridarelli on drums. Ridarelli would later follow Avalon into the teen idol scene under the name of Bobby Rydell.
Avalon was approached by Philadelphia music producer Bob Marcucci about singers who might be interested in recording some of his rock and roll numbers. He directed Marcucci to Andy Martin, frontman for Rocco and the Saints, but he passed on the Nordic-looking performer in favor of Avalon himself, whose dark Mediterranean looks would translate better with teen female audiences. After hearing Avalon perform a few songs, Marcucci quickly signed him to his label, Chancellor Records. His first record, a swooning pop song called “Cupid” was followed by “Teacher’s Pet.” Neither song made much of a dent on the charts, but they did earn him his first film appearance in 1957’s proto-rock and roll movie, “Jamboree,” where he promoted the latter tune. But his third release, “Dede Dinah” (1958), was a bonafide smash, reaching No. 7 on the pop charts, selling over a million copies. From that point on, Avalon was a certifiable teen idol, delivering five Top 20 hits between 1958 and 1959, including two No. 1 hits: 1959’s “Why” and his signature tune, “Venus.”
Blessed with boyish good looks, a capable voice and an abundant head of hair, Avalon found himself at the epicenter of teen fandom. He was unquestionably safe for adolescent consumption – Marcucci had shrewdly steered Avalon away from anything resembling rock and roll for that expressed purpose – and his clean-cut image passed muster with adults as well. His popularity on both fronts allowed him to transition smoothly into feature films as well. He played juvenile leads in mostly low-budget, drive-in films like “Guns of the Timberland” (1960) and “Panic in Year Zero!” (1961), with occasional forays into major features. He was a member of Davy Crockett’s militia in John Wayne’s “The Alamo” (1960) and a Navy seaman aboard Walter Pidgeon’s nuclear-powered submarine in “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1961). Avalon was of course granted the chance to croon songs in both films, thus guaranteeing youthful ticket buyers.
However, by the time of those film’s releases, Avalon’s stock in the teen music business was beginning to drop. Avalon’s brand of smooth, brassy pop gave way to more rock-oriented acts like The Beach Boys and, eventually, The Beatles, though he continued to release songs until 1960. He wisely shifted his focus to acting, and found a second stardom as the lead in a string of light musical comedies for American International Pictures (AIP), a low-budget production and distribution company that specialized in genre films for teen audiences. The rise of the surf culture in California had begun to catch on with national audiences, thanks in part to The Beach Boys’ music and the film “Gidget” (1959); AIP decided to exploit its growing popularity with “Beach Party” (1963), a harmless comedy about an anthropologist (Robert Cummings) studying the “mating habits” of Southern Californian teens while frolicking in the surf. Avalon was the “juvenile” lead, though by this point, he was well into his twenties and married to beauty pageant winner, Kathyrn Diebel. His onscreen partner was Annette Funicello, a former Mouseketeer who, like Avalon, was searching for her own niche after her initial teen stardom. “Beach Party’s” mix of silly comedy, real surf music (courtesy Dick Dale and the Del-Tones), sunny locations and plenty of semi-unclad flesh, was a massive hit with young audiences. AIP quickly ground out seven more “beach party” films between 1963 and 1965, most of which featured Avalon and Funicello repeating the same storyline of break-up and make-up, between crooning disposable pop tunes. Though the pictures were limited in terms of plot or dialogue, they did afford Avalon an opportunity to flex some comic muscles, most notably in 1964’s “Bikini Beach,” where he took broad potshots at the British Invasion as “Potato Bug,” a bespectacled and bewigged English rocker who bore a remarkable resemblance to Terry-Thomas.
When the beach party films ran their course, Avalon continued to work for AIP on several other features – all forgettable. By the 1970s, he was a staple on television as a guest star on episodic series and variety shows, playing up the nostalgic aspects of his celebrity. In 1976, he hosted his own variety program, “Easy Does It with Frankie Avalon” (CBS, 1976), a musical comedy show that also featured Funicello. Two years later, he experienced a career boost when he played the Teen Angel, heavenly guardian to the wayward Frenchie (Didi Conn), in the film version of “Grease” (1978). Reportedly, the character was based on Avalon’s stage presence and audiences’ responses to his charms. Avalon would reprise the role in numerous stage productions of the play, and performed the song along with contestants on the reality series “Grease: You’re the One that I Want!” (NBC, 2007), which sought out new cast members for the national productions.
In 1980, Avalon’s pop career and relationship with Bob Marcucci was the uncredited subject of Taylor Hackford’s film “The Idolmaker.” The Avalon figure, called “Tommy Dee” and played by Paul Land, was groomed by Ray Sharkey’s avaricious manager. Peter Gallagher played a fictitious Fabian, who devolved into a monster due to the pressures and glories of fame. When pressed for his take on the picture, Avalon dismissed it, stating that most of the incidents in the film were untrue.
Avalon celebrated his third decade in show business by hitting the road in 1985 with fellow former teen idols Rydell and Fabian in a package tour called “The Golden Boys of Bandstand,” which saw the principals – now in their fifties – reprising their greatest hits for an adoring audience. Two years later, Avalon had his first starring role in nearly two decades with “Back to the Beach” (1987), an amusing tribute-cum-parody of his beach party films that featured Funicello and a host of ’60s-era stars in cameos. Avalon and Funicello played the adult version of their beach party characters, wrestling with parenthood, middle age and the glories of the past. A fizzy, silly delight, it pleased audiences and critics alike, and gave Avalon his first credit as producer.
Avalon continued to play the oldies circuit throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, while selling health and cosmetics to his demographic via his web site and the Home Shopping Network. Still full of abundant good health in his sixth and seventh decade, he enjoyed a cameo opposite Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s “Casino” (1995) and made frequent appearances in show biz documentaries and specials, most notably in “Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project” (2007), which honored his frequent beach party co-star. In 2009, he performed “Venus” on “American Idol” (Fox, 2002- ), where he showed that he had lost none of his ability to charm audiences with a gentle pop tune.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
