K.T. Stevens was born in 1919 in Los Angeles. She was the daughter of director Sam Wood. Her films include “The Great Man’s Lady” with Barbara Stanwyck in 1942, “Port of New York” in 1949 with Yul Brynner and in 1950, “Harriet Craig” with Joan Crawford. She died in 1994.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
She certainly had the requisite genes for an acting career as her father was the legendary director Sam Wood and her mother was a stage performer. K.T. Stevens wasted no time either. By the time she was 2 years old, she had made her film debut in her father’s silent classic Peck’s Bad Boy (1921), which starred Jackie Coogan. Christened Gloria Wood, she was billed “Baby Gloria Wood” as a toddler. Following high school, she decided to pursue acting full-time, taking drama lessons and apprenticing in summer stock. In 1938, she toured in two productions: “You Can’t Take It with You” and “My Sister Eileen”. The following year, she made her Broadway debut in a walk-on role in “Summer Light”, which was directed by Lee Strasberg. At this point, she was calling herself “Katharine Stevens” (after her favorite actress, Katharine Hepburn), as she did not want to ride on her famous father’s coattails. Eventually, she settled on the initials “K.T.” which she felt added mystery and flair. Although her film career subsided, she flourished on radio (“Junior Miss”) and on the Broadway stage where “The Man Who Came to Dinner” (1940), “Yankee Point” (1942) and “Nine Girls” 1943) helped boost her reputation. K.T. met actor Hugh Marlowe after they appeared together on Broadway in “The Land Is Bright” (1941). Co-starring in a 1944 Chicago production of “The Voice of the Turtle”, they married in 1946. The couple went on to grace more than 20 stage shows together, including a Broadway production of the classic film Laura (1944), in which she played the mysterious title role and he played the obsessed detective. In the 1950s, K.T. moved to TV episodics with Perry Mason (1957), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) andThe Big Valley (1965), just a few of her guest appearances. She possessed an open-faced prettiness and seemed ideal for film noir, but her chance to breakthrough never materialized despite decent roles in Kitty Foyle (1940), which was directed by her father,The Great Man’s Lady (1942) starring Barbara Stanwyck, Port of New York (1949) with Yul Brynner, Vice Squad (1953) featuring Paulette Goddard and the sci-fi film Missile to the Moon (1958). Following her 1967 divorce from Marlowe, K.T. abandoned acting for a time in favor of teaching nursery school. She eventually returned to TV and made some strides in daytime soaps, most notably The Young and the Restless (1973). She also served three terms as President of the L.A. local branch of AFTRA. K.T. had two sons, Jeffrey Marlowe, born in 1948 and Christian, born in 1951, the latter best known these days as sportscaster Chris Marlowe. She died of lung cancer in 1994.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Dolores Michaels was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to Raymond Roscoe Michaels and his wife Esther Marie Holcomb.). Her father had been a professional baseball player who was acatcher in the Chicago Cubs.He then became a food broker.
Michaels had the same birthday as Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was born only five weeks before he was inaugurated President of the United States on March 4. Before her third birthday her father sent the president a birthday card informing him of the connection. Roosevelt replied sending Dolores his best wishes on her birthday.
She began studying ballet at age five, and went to New York City to study dance and drama before she graduated from Bishop Hogan High School . Her older sister, Gloria Michaels, had gone to New York City and joined the traveling cast of Brigadoon. When the musical came to Kansas City, 16-year old Dolores was inited to join them.
Michaels moved to Laguna Beach, California after she married interior decorator Maurice Martiné in 1953. They separated in 1958.[9] In January 1959, she filed for divorce. At the hearing she testified that Martiné had moved them into an expensive unfinished house, without heat or water, and that he expected her to bathe in the ocean, something she didn’t want to do because she was constantly catching a cold. The divorce became final on September 29, 1959. During her separation and after the divorce, she dated actor John Duke.
Michaels was discovered when she was doing a scene in an acting class at 20th Century-Fox‘s talent school. A group of producers and directors were in the audience, and after the scenes were finished, the audience voted on who gave the best performance. She won and got a contract with 20th Century-Fox.
Joanne Woodward was supposed to have the part of “Mildred Pritchard” in The Wayward Bus (1957), but Woodward dropped out to star in The Three Faces of Eve, and the part went to Michaels at the last minute, her first acting role. United Press International said in a review of the film that Michaels’ “torrid” scene, a seduction scene in a hayloft where she makes a pass at the bus driver (Rick Jason), “manages to steal the sexiest scene in the picture,” over better known sirens as Jayne Mansfield and Joan Collins. And also said that Hollywood had not had a scene like this since Jane Russell in The Outlaw. Director Victor Vicas shot the scene twice, an “A” scene and a “B” scene because of the censors.
Her publicist released a biography that stated she had attended the University of Kansas for one year and was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. But, people, trying to remember if they knew her, at both the university and the sorority could find no record of her at either entity. The fact was that she had enrolled at the university in the fall of 1951 and was “rushed” by the sorority, but she only stayed at the school a few weeks and then dropped out, and she did not join the sorority. He publicist had fabricated her biography to enhance it.
Early in her Hollywood career she struggled with her weight, as she was a compulsive eater. After trying all kinds of diets, she realized that the problem was “mental.” While a ballet dancer in New York City, her weight reached 152 pounds, this on a five-foot-five-inch frame. By the time she signed her contract with 20th Century-Fox, though, she weighed 135 pounds. She developed work-related anxiety; she would lose weight when she was not working, but once she got a role, she would start eating again, at times eating a two-pound box of chocolates in a single sitting. Michaels would eat fruit and cottage cheese all day and then raid the refrigerator at midnight, sometimes not even remembering that she had until she opened the refrigerator the next morning. The turning point came after the death of her father (he died April 15, 1959-); he was the one who had pushed her in her career, and without him, she felt lost. She went into psychological analysis and learned that she needed to “respect” her job. Michaels went down to 115 pounds and her career took off. She told Associated Press Hollywood reporter Bob Thomas: “I’m convinced that most weight problems stem from mental causes. But most people who lose weight on diets gain it back because they don’t know the reasons why they crave food. Generally it is because of some frustration in their lives.” Her psychologist told her to act and not dance ballet
Michaels wanted to be taken seriously as an actress and not be treated as a sex symbol. When one reporter asked her for her measurements, she responded, “You can go to the wardrobe department and find out.” She also said that she had never been asked to go to the studio photo gallery, stating, “That’s part of the old Hollywood glamor nonsense. Also, it’s in bad taste. I’m not a sexpot, I’m an actress”. Later she told Hollywood columnist Erskine Johnson: “I favor the truly sensual photograph over the coyly teasing garter shots. I’d even rather be posed artistically nude than photographed giggling from behind a Venetian blind. I have never objected to posing. It’s just that I wanted to build a career as an actress first”.
Michaels’ acting career lasted ten years from 1953-1963. Among her final appearances was the role of murderer Jo Sands in the 1962 Perry Mason episode, “The Case of the Playboy Pugilist.” She made her final appearance the following year on an episode of The Lloyd Bridges Show.
After John Duke, she started dating Argentine actor Alejandro Rey, whom she met on the set of Battle at Bloody Beach. She then started dating Novelist-screenwriter Bernard Wolfe (1915-1985), who proposed to her in 1962, but she sent the engagement ring back to him with a note that read, “I don’t wanna”.
Michaels and Wolfe married in Los Angeles on June 1, 1964. The marriage was her second and his first. He was 48 and she was 31. The couple divorced in October 1969.
She and Wolfe had twin daughters, Jordan M. and Miranda I., born in Los Angeles on July 23, 1970.
Dolores Michaels Wolfe died at the age of 68 in West Hollywood, California, of natural causes on September 25, 2001.
The above “Wikipedia” entry can also be accessed online here.
Comment om TCM:
I turned on the tv this morning and Battle at Bloody Beach was on. I started to change the channel, but the name Audie Murphy in the info made me pause and then when I saw Dolores Michaels I got a little more hooked. Something about her look really caught my attention. The name Dolores Michales made me think of the movie “Where the Boys Are”. To me she looked like an older, more world weary Merritt(Dolores Hart). Ms.Michaels character was strong, but she had just realized how strong she was when her husband was reported dead. I believe it was two years later when he showed up very much alive. Her struggle to still be a strong woman and fight for what she belived in and still be his wife was more then she thought she could handle during this time of war. Their fight with others just to survive is the most imortant thing they had to worry about. I really enjoyed this movie and look foward to seeing her in other movies.
Bo Hopkins was born in 1942 in Greenville, South Carolina. An appealing character actor he has featured in mmany Westerns and gang films and television series. Films include “The Wild Bunch” in 1969, “The Getaway” and “Midnight Express”. He had recurring roles in both “The Rockford Files” with James Garner and as Matthew Blaisdale in “Dynasty”.
TCM Overview:
Bo Hopkins’ acting background started at the infamous Desilu Playhouse under the guidance of Uta Hagen. His first major film acting role was in the western classic The Wild Bunch (1969) with acclaimed director Sam Peckinpah playing opposite the likes of a few other Hollywood notables – Ernest Borgnine, William Holden and Edmond O’Brien. From there his career was on the fast track to stardom. He gave a memorable performance in the Universal Pictures film AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) playing the role as the intimidating leader of the Pharaohs and he continues to amass notoriety for his clever portrayal still today.
With over one hundred acting credits to his name, Bo Hopkins continues to draw in the crowds when he finds time in his active schedule to make it to a select few car shows around the country. Always one to grant a photo op or sign an autograph for admirers of his work, he remains humble in his success.
Bo Hopkins obituary in 20222.
Character actor who specialised in a combination of good ol’ boy affability and latent violence
Bo Hopkins, far left, in The Wild Bunch (1969) as Crazy Lee. Photograph: Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock
Bo Hopkins, who has died aged 84, established his credentials as a character actor early in his film career. But he was already 31 when, in The Wild Bunch(1969), his third film role, he played Crazy Lee, left behind by the gang with their hostages as they escape an ambush. His glee as he marches the terrified captives around at gunpoint singing Shall We Gather at the River? highlighted the violent absurdity of the director Sam Peckinpah’s opening scene. In American Graffiti (1973), directed by George Lucas, he played the leader of a greaser gang, the Pharoahs, who frightens Richard Dreyfuss’s strait-laced Curt into pulling off a spectacular prank on the police. His reward, Hopkins tells him with a wily grin, will be membership of the Pharoahs, complete with “car coat and blood initiation”.
This combination of good ol’ boy affability and latent violence came to define Hopkins’s presence in more than 100 films and television roles, typecasting he escaped only occasionally, most notably perhaps in the soap Dynasty. His recurring part in this, as the geologist Matthew Blaisdel – former lover of Krystle Carrington (Linda Evans), and married to Claudia, who is having an affair with Blake Carrington’s son – was crucial enough for him to be brought back after being written out of the show.
His younger life may have prepared him for such roles. He was born in Greenville, South Carolina, named William, and adopted by Johnnie Hopkins, a mill worker, and his wife. But Johnnie died of a heart attack on the family’s front porch in front of Billy, then aged nine, and his mother, who dragged him inside trying to revive him. He lived with his mother and maternal grandparents, but when his mother remarried, he rebelled against his stepfather and returned to his grandparents. Having learned of his adoption, he met his birth mother and half-siblings.
Hopkins with Richard Dreyfuss in American Graffiti (1973). Photograph: Lucasfilm/Coppola Co/Universal/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock
A delinquent teenager, at 17 he enlisted in the US army rather than be sent to reform school. He served in the 101st Airborne Division and after his discharge returned to Greenville, where he married Norma Woodle and in 1960 had a daughter, Jane.
His wife disagreed with his desire to pursue acting and left, taking their daughter; they divorced in 1962. He played in a local production of The Teahouse of the August Moon and won a scholarship for summer stock at the Pioneer Playhouse in Danville, Kentucky. “I didn’t even know what summer stock was,” he recalled. After his season, he went to New York, and was playing in an off-Broadway production of Bus Stop, when the producer wanted him to change his name. He took the name Bo from his character.
He moved to Los Angeles, attending classes at the Actors Studio, and won another scholarship, to Desilu-Cahuenga Studios (now Red Studios Hollywood), where he studied under Uta Hagen. His first television role came in 1966 on the Phyllis Diller Show, a comedy, followed by three westerns and the Andy Griffith Show. In some ways he resembled Griffith, an easy-going character with a dark side, which Griffith had demonstrated so well in A Face in the Crowd (1957).
His break in The Wild Bunch came not through TV, but because William Holden saw him on stage in Picnic, and recommended him to Peckinpah. His next part was in an underrated war film, The Bridge at Remagen (1969). He went back to South Carolina and took his mother and grandmother to see it, and The Wild Bunch, and recalled how “everyone who said I was gonna end up in prison said they always knew Billy was gonna make something of himself”.
Hopkins with Brad Davis in Alan Parker’s Midnight Express (1978). Photograph: Columbia/Allstar
Parts followed in interesting movies including Monte Walsh (1970), The Moonshine War (1970) and The Culpepper Cattle Co (1972), roles that Slim Pickens or Jack Elam might once have filled. Peckinpah cast him again in The Getaway (1972) as the robber double-crossed by Al Lettieri before Lettieri tries the same on Steve McQueen. In White Lightning (1973) he was the moonshiner whom Burt Reynolds chases.
His turn in American Graffiti landed him a recurring role in the TV series Doc Elliot, and by 1975 he seemed on the verge of a breakthrough, with substantial roles in The Day of the Locust and Peckinpah’s The Killer Elite, an eye-catching part as a would-be gangster dressed as a cowboy in Robert Mulligan’s off-beat Nickel Ride, and playing Pretty Boy Floyd in a TV movie, The Kansas City Massacre. Soon, however, his career’s pattern was set: he played Jim Rockford’s lawyer in The Rockford Files, but his bigger parts were in lesser films or TV movies; his engaging turns came in bigger films, for instance playing the mysterious Tex, who ensures Brad Davis is sent to prison, in Alan Parker’s Midnight Express (1978).
Hopkins became enough of a cult figure that Quentin Tarantino cast him in a leading role as a sheriff in the early straight-to-video From Dusk Till Dawn 2 (1999). His final appearance came in Hillbilly Elegy (2020), directed by his American Graffiti co-star Ron Howard.
Hopkins is survived by his second wife, Sian Green, whom he married in 1989, their son, Matthew, and his daughter, Jane.
Bo (William Mauldin) Hopkins, actor, born 2 February 1938; died 28 May 2022Bo
Guy Rolfe was a very tall, lean-featured English actor who enjoyed a lengthy career on film both in Britain and in Hollywood. He was born in Kilburn, London in 1911. His screen debut was in 1937 in “Knight Without Armour”. He was particularily good at sneering villians and can be seen to good effect in “The Drum”, “Hungary Hill”,”The Spider and the Fly”, “Oddman Out”, “Ivanhoe” and “Mr Sardonicus” in 1962. At the age of 80 his acting career got a major lease of life with his portryal of Andre Toulan in the “Puppetmaster” movies which began for him in 1991 with “Puppetmaster 3 – Toulans Revenge” and continued until Puppet Master 5″ in 1994. Guy Rolfe died in London in 2003.
Ronald Bergan’s “Guardian” obituary:
Among screen villains, one of the most hissable was Guy Rolfe, who has died aged 91. Often sporting a goatee-beard Rolfe, with his aquiline nose, gaunt and saturnine appearance, had something of the night about him. Although most of the roles he played were irredeemable baddies with little room for nuance, Rolfe was able to bring some dash and plausibility to them.
If he had not gone sinister in the 1950s, Rolfe might have continued in British films as another character actor playing staunch officers, kindly doctors and dependable policemen. He first shone in Robert Hamer’s atmospheric thriller The Spider And The Fly (1949) as a master thief turned spy.
He played a few romantic leads which might have been more convincingly taken by Stewart Granger or Dennis Price. In Prelude To Fame (1950), he was a philosophy professor who discovers an Italian boy who is a musical genius (Jeremy Spencer), only to regret the negative results of what fame has done to his protegé. Dance Little Lady (1952) saw him as a doctor falling for ballet dancer Mai Zetterling, whom he helps to walk again after an accident.
It was Hollywood, in the tradition of using British actors as well-spoken nasty types, which brought out Rolfe’s evil side. It started with him cast as the sinuous Prince John pitted against Robert Taylor’s Ivanhoe (1952). He had a lip-smacking moment when he condemned Elizabeth Taylor’s Rebecca as a witch who was to be burned at the stake.
Rolfe did not actually get to Hollywood because the epic was mostly shot at Boreham Wood Studios. But the following year, he capitalised on his new wickedness by getting cast as the cunning Ned Seymour in Young Bess, filmed at MGM’s Culver City Studios, and then browning-up as wily oriental characters in two examples of Hollywood exotica: King Of The Khyber Rifles in which Rolfe is Karram Khan, a rebel tribesman causing problems for British officer Tyrone Power, and Veils Of Bagdad as Kasseim, an evil vizier plotting against beefy Victor Mature.
Actually Rolfe was as British as they come. He was born in north London and after education at a state school, became a professional boxer and then a racing-car driver before deciding, aged 24, to take up acting. After provincial repertory came his walk-on film debut in Jacques Feyder’s Knight Without Armour (1937).
After the second world war, Rolfe was offered the role of the consumptive retired army officer who falls in love with a dying fellow patient (Jean Simmons) in Sanatorium, the last of the Somerset Maugham stories in Trio (1950), but ironically had to pull out when he himself contracted TB.
Rolfe, who was always elegantly dressed, and would often arrive at the studios in his chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, overcame his illness and continued to be in demand into his 80s, when he gathered a cult following of fans of schlocky slasher movies. This new lease of life came about in 1987, when the director Stuart Gordon tracked Rolfe down to Spain, where the actor had retired since the early 1970s, to appear in his film Dolls.
Gordon had remembered Rolfe from a low-budget William Castle shocker, Mr Sardonicus (1961). As Sardonicus, a decadent 19th-century aristocrat whose face has frozen into a hideous grin as a result of a frightening experience, Rolfe kidnaps Audrey Dalton to compel her surgeon lover, Ronald Lewis, to operate on his face.
In Dolls, Rolfe is benign in comparison as an aged doll-maker who lives with his wife in a gloomy mansion. In typical “old dark house” fashion, a number of strangers seek refuge from a storm. As the night progresses, the dolls come to life to take revenge on those who are mean and no longer children at heart.
The film led to his role as the insane puppeteer Andre Toulon, in a series of six Puppet Master movies, the last of which appeared in 1999. In this Rolfe managed to bring dignity and credibility to the thoroughly dislikable character who manipulates living dolls to do his bidding.
Rolfe is survived by his second wife, Margaret Allworthy.
· Guy (Edwin Arthur) Rolfe, actor, born December 27 1911; died October 19 2003
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Beatrice Lillie was born in 1894 in Toronto, Canada. She made her stage debut in New York to stunning notices. She was a celebrated player on both the Broadway and London stages for many years. Her dilm appearances although infrequent were choice. Of particular note is “On Approval” in 1944 with Googie Withers and “Thoroughly Modern Millie” with Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore in 1967. She died in England in 1989.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Dubbed “the funniest woman in the world”, comedienne Beatrice Lillie was born the daughter of a Canadian government official and grew up in Toronto. She sang in a family trio act with her mother, Lucy, and her piano-playing older sister, Muriel. Times were hard and the ambitious mother eventually took the girls to England to test the waters. In 1914, Bea made her solo debut in London’s West End and was an immediate hit with audiences. A valuable marquee player as a droll revue and stage artiste, she skillfully interwove sketches, songs and monologues with parody and witty satire. In 1924, she returned to America and was an instant success on Broadway, thus becoming the toast of two continents. For the next decade, she worked with the top stage headliners of her day, including Gertrude Lawrence, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley. Noel Coward and Cole Porterwrote songs and even shows for her. A top radio and comedy recording artist to boot, Bea’s success in films was surprisingly limited, although she did achieve some recognition in such productions as Exit Smiling (1926) and Dr. Rhythm (1938). During the Second World War, Bea became a favourite performer with the troops and, in her post-war years, toured with her own show “An Evening with Beatrice Lillie”. Her rather eccentric persona worked beautifully on Broadway and, in 1958, she replaced Rosalind Russell in “Auntie Mame”. In 1964, she took on the role of “Madame Arcati” in the musical version of “Blithe Spirit”, entitled “High Spirits”. This was to be her last staged musical. Sadly, her style grew passé and outdated in the Vietnam era, and she quickly faded from view after a movie appearance in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). At this point, she had already begun to show early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, although she managed to publish her biography in 1973. A year later, Bea suffered the first of two strokes and lived the next decade and a half in virtual seclusion. She died in 1989 at age 94.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Daliah Lavi was born in Palestine in 1942. She made her film debut in 1960 and her first international was “Two Weeks in Another Town” with Kirk Douglas in 1962. Three years later she was Peter O’Toole’s leading lady in “Lord Jim” and then went to Hollywood to make “The Silencers” with Dean Martin. Her last major film role was in “Catlow” with Yul Brynner in 1971. In recent years she had established herself as a very successful singer in Germany. Daliah Lavi died in 2017.
Guardian” obituary:
With the huge success of the James Bond film franchise, starting with Dr No in 1962, a plethora of spin-offs appeared throughout the 1960s. They followed the original recipe of exotic locales, an evil genius who wishes to take over the world, a laidback, oversexed super spy hero and a bevy of (mostly treacherous) beautiful women. Among the actors portraying the last of these was Daliah Lavi, who has died aged 74.
Almost all Lavi’s film career took place in that swinging decade during which she was most likely to be seen in miniskirt and kinky boots, or displaying her underwear. The multilingual Lavi (born in the British Mandate of Palestine) had already made several French, German, Italian and Hollywood films before she starred as a sexy double agent opposite Dean Martin in The Silencers (1966), the first of the “bosoms and bullets” Matt Helm series.
Continuing in the light-hearted parodic tone was The Spy With a Cold Nose (1966) – the title refers to a bulldog with a microphone implant – in which Lavi as a Russian princess slips into the bed of a British counterintelligence agent (Lionel Jeffries), something he has long dreamed of. Lavi, with her tongue firmly in her cheek, was one of the plethora of 007s in Casino Royale (1967) and, her dark hair in a high beehive, was an alluring and mysterious woman who runs a gambling house in London in the cold war thriller Nobody Runs Forever (1968). The run of spy spoofs ended with Some Girls Do (1969), in which she was a villain, opposing and attracting “Bulldog” Drummond (Richard Johnson).
She was born Daliah Lewinbuk in the village of Shavi Zion in what was to become Israel. Her Jewish parents, Reuben and Ruth, were Russian and German respectively. When Daliah was 10 years old, she met the Hollywood star Kirk Douglas, who was making The Juggler near the Lewinbuks’ village.
Discovering that she wanted to become a ballet dancer, Douglas arranged for her to get a scholarship to study ballet in Stockholm. However, after three yearsshe was advised to give up dancing because of low blood pressure. It was then that she switched her ambitions to acting, making her first screen appearance while still a teenager in Arne Mattsson’s The People of Hemso (1955), a Swedish production based on the August Strindberg novel.
On her return to Israel, Lavi worked as a model and starred as a femme fatale in Blazing Sand (1960), a trashy “matzo western”, in which she does an exotic dance in a nightclub, a foretaste of her later roles in campy spy movies. Then moving to Paris, and changing her surname to Lavi, which means lioness in Hebrew, she won the part of Cunégonde in Candide (1960), an update to the second world war of Voltaire’s satirical novel.
She had an uncharacteristic part in Violent Summer (Un Soir Sur La Plage, 1961) as a girl found murdered on the beach after a fleeting sexual encounter. For her role as the beautiful Italian woman causing friction between a washed-up movie star (Douglas) and a temperamental newcomer (George Hamilton) in Vincente Minnelli’s Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) – shot in Italy – Lavi won a Golden Globes award as the most promising female newcomer. One of her rare straight dramatic roles was as a young woman who brings comfort to the complex eponymous hero (Peter O’Toole) in Lord Jim (1965), Richard Brooks’s sluggish epic based on Joseph Conrad’s novel, and shot in Cambodia and Malaysia.
But she had made only a slight impression in the films that preceded the spy spoofs, the exception being The Whip and the Body (1963), a gothic horror film directed by Mario Bava, the father of the Italian giallo genre. One of the fetish set pieces takes place on a beach when the cruel aristocrat (Christopher Lee) horsewhips his brother’s bride (Lavi), before they engage in sado-masochistic love play.
After a turn as a furious Mexican woman scorned by an outlaw (Yul Brynner) in the mediocre western Catlow (1971), Lavi deserted the silver screen and began a whole new career as a singer. The Israeli actor Topol had persuaded Lavi to make recordings of Hebrew songs for the BBC in 1969. She soon became one of the most popular singers in Germany, her biggest hits being Oh Wann Kommst Du?(Oh, when will you come?) and Willst Du Mit Mir Gehen? (Do you want to go with me?).
She is survived by her fourth husband, the businessman Charles Gans, and their three sons and daughter.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
This ravishing, raven-haired Israeli beauty was a star in Europe long before she made a dent in Hollywood in the late 60s. Along with other tasty foreign imports at the time, such as Brigitte Bardot, ‘Ursula Andress’, Elke Sommer, Ewa Aulin, Senta Berger, Rosanna Schiaffino, Shirley Eaton, Sylva Koscina, Barbara Bouchet, et al., she pursued sex symbol status via spy spoofs, erotic thrillers, tongue-in-cheek comedies and rugged adventures. In retrospect, however, she fell quite short of her pedestal amid the large crowd of sexy luminaries at the time. Born Daliah Levenbuch, she began training as a dancer and bit part actress before she abruptly halted her career to serve with the Israeli army. In the early 60s she returned to acting and began to figure in prominently with a host of French, Italian, German and English productions being offered. Daliah reached her film crest withLord Jim (1965), The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966), and the wild and wooly Bondian spoofCasino Royale (1967), which had American male audiences noticing her for the first time. Decked out in tight mini-skirts, thigh-high go-go boots and a helmet of black hair, Daliah fit in perfectly with the times, a swinging chick of the psychedelic 60s. Her last film was the very mediocre Catlow (1971) with Yul Brynner and she quickly abandoned films. Ms. Lavi pursued a singing career back in Europe with little fanfare and only recently has been glimpsed on German television in the 90s.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Lisa Eichhorn was born in 1952 in Glens Falls, New York. She got a major breakthrough when she was cast opposite Richard Gere in the excellent”Yanks” in 1979. Other roles include in “Inside Moves”, and “The Europeans” with Lee Remick.
TCM Overview:
This talented leading lady has divided her time between stage and film roles in both England and the US. Lisa Eichhorn was first seen by American audiences opposite Richard Gere in the World War II romance, “Yanks” (1979), but her presence in her native land has been lessened by her decision to base in England. Nevertheless, Eichhorn has offered several critically-acclaimed feature film portrayals, even if she did not become a “box-office” commodity. She appeared alongside Lee Remick in the Merchant-Ivory production “The Europeans” (1979), opposite Treat Williams in “Why Would I Lie?” (1980) and was “Mo” Cutter in “Cutter’s Way” (1981), opposite Jeff Bridges and John Heard. In the 90s, Eichhorn has begun to play mother roles, notably Jesse Bradford’s mother, sent to a sanitarium, in Steven Soderbergh’s “King of the Hill” (1993) and the First Lady in the pallid comedy “First Kid” (1996).
Her work on American TV has been sporadic. Eichhorn made her TV-movie debut in the celebrated 1982 CBS production of “The Wall” as a Jewish woman in the Warsaw ghetto who participates in the uprising and survives to reach freedom. She was a CIA operative in the USA Network movie, “Pride and Extreme Prejudice” (1990), and although she had never been on a primetime series as a regular, Eichhorn did appear on the ABC daytime drama “All My Children” as Elizabeth Carlyle in 1987. Eichhorn has made memorable guest appearances on “Miami Vice”, “The Equalizer” and two separate episodes of “Law & Order”. Additionally, she has worked on stage: as Ophelia in “Hamlet”, Rosalind in “As You Like It” and Nora in “A Doll’s House” in England; and in “The Hasty Heart”, “The Common Pursuit” and “The Speed of Darkness” in the US.
The above TCM overview can be also accessed online here.
Jay North was born in 1951 in Hollywood and is perhaps best known for his playing of the title role in the television series “Dennis the Menace” from 1959 until 1963. His films include “The Big Operator” in 1959 and “Maya” in 1966.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Jay North will forever be remembered for giving life to the comic strip hellion Dennis the Menace (1959) on TV. Humanizing this little tornado would not only be his treasure, it would be his torment. Born in 1951, Jay was first seen on TV in 1958 and moved eagerly to minor filming the next year. With over 500 children auditioning, Jay was selected by Dennis’ creator Hank Ketcham himself for the star-making title role, appearing in 146 episodes over a four-year period (1959-1963). During this TV peak he also appeared in countless variety programs, including those hosted by Dinah Shore, Milton Berle andTennessee Ernie Ford. He guest starred in episodes of My Three Sons (1960) and The Lucy Show (1962), among others. However, after the cancellation of his own show, the now active teenager noticed a major tapering off. He found himself badly typecast and efforts to forge ahead with film projects and other series work proved difficult. At first things looked promising. He perpetuated his wholesome image with the family film Zebra in the Kitchen (1965) and, more notably, the exotic adventure Maya (1966), which spun off into a mildly popular TV series, but then all offers dried up. He went from top child star to has-been teen in only a few short years, and had a terrible time adjusting. Despite voicing the popular character Bamm-Bamm in the animated series The Flintstones (1960) and other animated characters in the late 1960s, Jay all but disappeared save a few glimpses here and there. He went through years of personal turmoil and emotional anguish (divorces, drug experimentation, weight gain) before his recovery. Reportedly abused and mishandled during his peak years by on-set relatives/caretakers, Jay has since been instrumental in providing advice and counseling to other professional child/teen stars in the same boat. From time to time these days, Jay has been glimpsed at nostalgia conventions.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Barbara Everest was born in Southfields, London in 1890. She made her film debut in the silent movie “The Man Without A Soul” in 1916. In 1943 she continued her career in Hollywood where she made “Mission to Moscow”, “Gaslight” with Ingrid Bergman and Angela Lansbury and “The Valley of Decision”. By 1947 she was back in Britain and she continued acting until 1965 when she made her final film “Rotten to the Core”. She died in 1968.
TCM Overview:
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Barbara Everest was an actress who had a successful Hollywood career. In her early acting career, Everest appeared in such films as “Love in Exile” (1936), “Jump For Glory” (1937) and the drama “Commandos Strike at Dawn” (1942) with Paul Muni. She also appeared in the Anthony Collins drama “Forever and a Day” (1943) and “Mission to Moscow” (1943) with Walter Huston. She continued to work steadily in film throughout the forties, appearing in “The Phantom of the Opera” (1943) with Nelson Eddy, the Charles Boyer adaptation “Gaslight” (1944) and the Orson Welles dramatic adaptation “Jane Eyre” (1944). She also appeared in the thriller “The Uninvited” (1944) with Ray Milland and the drama “The Valley of Decision” (1945) with Greer Garson. Film continued to be her passion as she played roles in the dramatic adaptation “Frieda” (1947) with David Farrar, “The Safecracker” (1958) with Ray Milland and “El Cid” (1961). She also appeared in the Macdonald Carey adaptation “These Are the D*mned” (1962). Everest more recently acted in “Rotten to the Core” (1965). Everest passed away in February 1968 at the age of 78.
The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.
