QUOTES – JOHN HUSTON
JOHN HUSTON: (1906-87) John Huston was one of the movie industry’s truly great directors, a man responsible for such classics as (in no particular order): The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The African Queen […]
MOVIE TRIVIA – PT176
Olivier & Monroe in a scene from The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) In his 1983 autobiography ‘Confessions of an Actor’, Laurence Olivier wrote that upon meeting Marilyn Monroe preparatory to the commencement of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), he was convinced he was going to fall in love with […]
TV WESTERNS – PT15
GUNSMOKE (1955-75) 635 EPISODES (L to R) – Dennis Weaver, Amanda Blake, James Arness & Milburn Stone James Arness almost did not take the Marshal Matt Dillon role in Gunsmoke after people in the industry warned him that […]
WORLD WAR TWO – The stars & their stories – PT49.
DON RICKLES (1926-2017) Don was born to Lithuanian- Jewish parents in New York City and grew up in Jackson Heights. After graduating from Newtown High School he enlisted in the United States Navy at the age of seventeen. He served as a seaman first class aboard the motor […]
MOVIES – PT27 – ‘The Sand Pebbles’ & ‘The Asphalt Jungle’.
THE SAND PEBBLES (1966) The Sand Pebbles is a fine movie, one that enabled its star Steve McQueen to reach the peak of his career. In fact, he received his one and only Oscar […]
MOVIE TRIVIA – PT175
Billy Bob Thornton Billy Bob Thornton has been married six times (as of July 2020), the first five unions having ended in divorce. From 1978 until 1980, he was married to Melissa Lee Gatlin, who cited ‘incompatibility and adultery on his part’ in her divorce petition. They had one […]
Jennifer JONES & Shirley JONES.
JENNIFER JONES (1919-2009) She was born Phyllis Isley in 1919, and met her first husband, Robert Walker, when they played Elizabeth and Robert Browning in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts production of ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street’. The love-struck couple married and honey-mooned in 1939 before moving to […]
MOVIES – PT26.
THE WIND AND THE LION (1975) This uneven and generally silly movie is based (very, very loosely) on a real incident that took place in Tangier, Morocco in October 1904. It focuses on the kidnapping of an American ex-patriot […]
WORLD WAR TWO – The stars & their stories – PT48.
GEORGE REEVES (1914-59) Television’s first Superman, George Reeves, was born George Brewer in Woolstock, Iowa, but was raised in Pasadena, California. He was a good amateur boxer and musician before interning as an actor at the famed Pasadena Playhouse where he was discovered by a movie talent scout who offered […]
RANDOM QUOTES – PT45
ESTHER WILLIAMS: [Swimming superstar Esther Williams commented on her time at MGM]: ‘The popular ‘Andy Hardy’ series movies [starring Mickey Rooney] were MGM’s tests for its promising stars such as Judy Garland, Lana Turner and Donna Reed. If you didn’t make it in those pictures, you […]