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If you've seen any of Charlie Chaplin's best comedy shorts, you've probably seen Eric Campbell. Campbell, a native of Scotland, played opposite Chaplin in a dozen films in 1916 and 1917. Campbell's daunting 6-foot-5, 300-pound frame made him perfect as a foe for the diminutive Chaplin. Despite his menacing figure, Campbell was a gentle soul whose final year was marred by terrible tragedy. On July 9, 1917, Campbell's wife died suddenly of a heart attack after dining at a Santa Monica restaurant near their home. Walking to a nearby store to buy a mourning dress, Campbell's 16-year-old daughter, Una, was hit by a car a seriously injured. That September, Campbell met Pearl Gilman, a vaudeville comedienne with a family reputation for gold-digging. Just five days after they met, Campbell and Gilman were married. (Daughter Una, still recuperating at a friend's home in Santa Monica canyon, was not told of the wedding for several weeks.) Less than two months after marrying the gentle giant, Gilman sued him for divorce, claiming her new husband abused her with his heavy drinking and profanity. Campbell moved into the Los Angeles Athletic Club, taking a room next to his best friend Chaplin. At a cast party Campbell got drunk. Driving home on December 20, 1917 at 4 a.m., Campbell crashed his car and was killed. He was 39. Campbell's ashes remained unclaimed for more than 30 years.
Tags:
Eric
Campbell
actor
silent
films
Chaplin
Added: 9th February 2011
Views: 625
Rating: 
Posted By: Lava1964 |
 
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Debralee Scott was an actress best known for her role on the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter.
Her first film appearance came shortly after her 18th birthday in 1971. It was an uncredited role as a nude corpse in the Clint Eastwood cop flick Dirty Harry. At age 22 she found fame on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, playing Mary's sister, Cathy Shumway. In 1975-76 Scott appeared on the first season of the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter as female sweathog Rosalie 'Hotsy' Totsy. Later she had a role in the Donna Pescow sitcom Angie, playing Angie's younger sister, Marie Falco.
Among her other credits were the 1973 feature film American Graffiti and the 1974 film Earthquake.
Scott also regularly appeared as a celebrity panelist on Match Game between 1976 and 1982. Scott continued to act, appearing in two Police Academy movies, but she later retired from acting and became an agent for a company in New York City called Empowered Artists. The last few years of Scott's life were replete with tragedy:
Scott's fiancé, Port Authority police officer John Dennis Levi, died during the 9/11 attacks. In March 2005, Scott moved from Brooklyn to Amelia Island, Florida to care for her ailing elder sister, Carol Anne, a producer who had worked on many Robert Altman films.
Soon after her arrival in Florida, Scott collapsed and lingered in a coma for several days before waking. Since doctors could not ascertain what caused the coma, she was released two days later. Three days later, on April 5, 2005, she took a nap and never woke up. She was three days past her 52nd birthday. Despite an autopsy, the cause of death remained uncertain. Scott's body was cremated. Her sister died of heart failure on July 13, 2006.
Tags:
Debralee
Scott
actress
sitcoms
Added: 27th February 2011
Views: 1823
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Hockey fans were saddened to hear of the passing of Rick Martin, 59, one of the National Hockey League's most lethal snipers during the 1970s. The popular and fun-loving Martin combined with Gilbert Perreault and Rene Robert to form the high-scoring French Connection line that led the Buffalo Sabres to the Stanley Cup finals in 1975. According to media reports, Martin was felled by a heart attack while driving alone in the Buffalo suburb of Clarence, NY on Sunday, March 13, 2011. Witnesses say they saw the car's driver, later identified as Martin, keel over at the wheel. His car crossed the center line, crashed into a utility pole, and slid into a tree. Bystanders and police attempted to revive Martin to no avail. In an NHL career that totalled 685 regular-season games from 1971 to 1981, Martin scored 384 goals and added 317 assists. In 63 playoff games, Martin tallied 24 goals and collected 29 assists.
Tags:
hockey
Rick
Martin
Buffalo
Sabres
death
Added: 13th March 2011
Views: 329
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Few American realize the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor twice during the Second World War. The second attack, on March 4, 1942, was hushed up by the military. The residents who lived in the area where the bombs fell were not even sure what had happened. Many believed it was a local defense battery practice. The intended target, Pearl Harbor, was miles away from where the Japanese bombs actually fell. Neverthless, less than 90 days after the famous December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese attempted a second attack.
On Wednesday, March 4, 1942 during the early morning hours, four 550-pound bombs were dropped on Mount Tantalus, a quiet residential section in Honolulu. The U.S. Military officials confirmed two enemy planes were responsible for the raid. The planes were Kawanishi H8K flying boats that launched from a spy base housed near the Hawaiian archipelago. There were no injuries reported or loss of life and only limited property damage. The bombs fell in a wooded section of the area, creating a large crater and shattering a few windows.
Tags:
Pearl
Harbor
Second
Attack
war
Added: 7th April 2011
Views: 1554
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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"Macho Man" Randy Savage, a professional wrestler who became a fan favorite thanks to his outlandish outfits and trademark catchphrase, died Friday in a car wreck, according to TMZ.
The 58-year-old Savage reportedly suffered a heart attack while driving his 2009 Jeep Wrangler in Tampa, Fla., and careened across lanes of oncoming traffic before colliding head-on with a tree. He died later at a local hospital.
Savage's wife Lynn, who was riding in the passenger seat, escaped with only minor injuries. Both passengers were wearing seatbelts and the police do not believe alcohol was a factor.
The World Wrestling Federation favorite from Ohio burst onto the scene in 1985 and quickly drew attention with his flamboyant outfits and "ooh yeah!" catchphrase. His marriage to Elizabeth Hulette, Ms. Elizabeth to fans, was one of the first high-profile wrestler/valet relationships. They divorced in 1992. Savage remarried last year.
He won two WWF championships in his career. His match against Ricky Steamboat in 1987's Wrestlemania III is considered one of the best WWF bouts ever. Savage won the title late that year, setting the stage for memorable battles with Hulk Hogan, who would eventually dethrone him as champion.
Savage also appeared in memorable ads for Slim Jim and played a wrestler in the 2002 hit film "Spider-Man."
Tags:
Macho
Man
Randy
Savage
dies
in
a
car
crash
Added: 20th May 2011
Views: 510
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Posted By: Cliffy |
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One of the most horrific crimes in Canadian history occurred on a Greyhound bus in the summer of 2008. The incident took place near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, during a trip from Edmonton to Winnipeg.
At 12:01 a.m. on July 30, 2008, Tim McLean, a 23-year-old carnival worker, was returning home to Manitoba after working at a fair in Alberta. He departed Edmonton on board Greyhound bus 1170 to Winnipeg. He sat at the rear, one row ahead of the washroom. At 6:55 p.m., the bus departed from a stop in Erickson, Manitoba with a new passenger, Vince Weiguang Li, described as a tall man in his 40s, with a shaved head and sunglasses. Li originally sat near the front of the bus, but moved to sit next to McLean following a scheduled rest stop. McLean 'barely acknowledged' Li, then fell asleep against the window pane, headphones covering his ears.
According to witnesses, McLean was sleeping with his headphones on when the man sitting next to him suddenly produced a large knife and began stabbing McLean in the neck and chest. The attacker then decapitated McLean and displayed his severed head to other passengers outside who had fled the bus in horror. The driver and two other men attempted to rescue McLean but were chased away by Li, who slashed wildly at them from behind the locked bus doors. Li then went back to the body and began severing other body parts and consuming some of McLean's flesh. After a long standoff with police, Li was apprehended. He was found not criminally responsible for the crime that he obviously committed, but Li was confined to a pyschiatric hospital. This outraged many Canadians who saw it as a travesty of justice. There were calls for the return of capital punishment, the abolition of insanity pleas, and the creation of a new type of verdict: guilty but not criminally responsible. In May 2011, a psychiatrist recommended Li be given more freedoms to be phased in slowly. Two passengers have filed multi-million-dollar lawsuits against Greyhound Canada for their emotional damage at having witnessed the murder. At the time of the murder, Greyhound Canada was ironically running TV ads advertising how serene long-distance bus travel was and how there was no such thing as 'bus rage.' The ads were quickly yanked off the air.
Tags:
murder
Winnipeg
Canada
Greyhound
bus
Added: 31st May 2011
Views: 1134
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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I posted this on the CBC News website in Canada following the Boston Bruins' Stanley Cup championship on June 15, 2011. It got such a wonderful response that I thought I'd share it here too: It had been 14,279 days since captain Johnny Bucyk hoisted the Boston Bruins' last Stanley Cup on May 11, 1972. To put things in perspective...
Richard Nixon was in the White House.
America still had combat troops in Vietnam.
If you bought a quarter's worth of candy, you could get sick eating it all.
Pitchers still batted in the American League.
There was no such thing as rap music or punk rock.
Nobody considered the possibility of terrorist attacks at the Olympics.
The NHL had 14 teams. Few players wore helmets. Some goalies didn't wear masks.
Nobody seriously thought hockey players from the USSR were good.
There were hardly any McDonald's Restaurants in Canada. There were very few Tim Hortons either.
Archie Bunker was in his heyday.
Television sets had rabbit ears.
Nobody thought the world was in peril from global warming or climate change or whatever they're calling it this week.
Lotteries were illegal in Canada.
Arthur Godfrey Time had still been on the radio two weeks earlier.
Calculators could perform four functions and cost $179.
Most people had rotary telephones.
Forget about DVD players--VCRs didn't exist.
The idea of bottled water would have been laughable.
Computers were enormous things that occupied entire rooms and did simple calculations using punch cards.
Hardware meant hammers and wrenches. Software didn't mean anything.
People still sent telegrams.
Life Magazine was still around.
Canada still had the death penalty.
O.J. Simpson was a hero.
The Lord's Prayer was recited in public schools. Nobody thought it was wrong.
A new car cost $2500.
Hockey cards were a dime a pack--and they came with pink bubble gum covered in powdered sugar.
Bobby Orr was the greatest player in the NHL. (Thirty-nine years later he's still the greatest of all time.).
Tags:
hockey
Boston
Bruins
1972
Stanley
Cup
Added: 16th June 2011
Views: 1079
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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In October 1941, the mayor of Port Orford, Oregon, Gilbert Gable, announced that the Oregon counties of Curry, Josephine, Jackson, and Klamath should join with the California counties of Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Modoc to form a new state, later named Jefferson.
The first blow was the death of Mayor Gable on December 2, followed five days later by the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7. Secessionists focused their efforts on the war effort, which crippled the movement
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State
of
Jefferson,
Port
Orford,
Oregon,
Gilbert
Gable,
Curry,
Josephine,
Jackson,
and
Klamath,
Del
Norte,
Siskiyou,
and
Modoc,
attack
on
Pearl
Harbor,
Secession,Secessionists
Added: 13th July 2011
Views: 901
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Posted By: pfc |
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ABC News found itself in an embarrassing position in 1990. Acting on a viewer's tip, 20/20, ABC's weekly news magazine, aired a "Where are they now?" segment about former Our Gang member Buckwheat. The story claimed that Buckwheat, whose real name was Bill English, was modestly employed as a grocery bagger at a Tempe, AZ supermarket. Immediately following the broadcast, dozens of Our Gang fans called ABC to tell the network they had been duped by an imposter. The real Buckwheat was named Billie Thomas--and he had died of a heart attack in 1980. Among the whistle-blowers was Our Gang alumnus Spanky McFarland who had worked alongside Thomas from 1934 until 1942. (Buckwheat stayed with the series until its conclusion in 1944.) Shortly after the hoax was exposed, a reporter from A Current Event interviewed McFarland via satellite from his home in Dallas while simultaneously interviewing English via satellite from Tempe. English came across as mumbling, evasive, incoherent, and thoroughly unconvincing. Moreover, English claimed to be the "first Buckwheat"--even though there was only one. The fallout of the debacle was that Lynn Murray, the producer of the 20/20 segment, was fired for doing inadequate research. Thomas's son sued ABC for damages. Hugh Downs issued an on-air apology on the following 20/20 broadcast. ABC News released a half-hearted, semi-apologetic media statement describing the situation as awkward "because English truly believes he is Buckwheat." English went to his grave in November 1994 still maintaining he was Buckwheat.
Tags:
Buckwheat
hoax
Our
Gang
ABC
20/20
Added: 21st August 2011
Views: 845
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Donald Haines was a supporting character in the Our Gang comedies just after the transition from silent movies to sound. Haines's tenure began during the early talkies up through the "Miss Crabtree episodes," when he would leave for feature films at Paramount only to return a few months later. His tenure continued through 1933.
Haines's first short was Shivering Shakespeare, which featured the youngster giggling his way through his lines. On the next short The First Seven Years, he was a main character, playing opposite Jackie Cooper. After that, he was a recurring character with a few small speaking roles until 1931. At that time he was offered a contract with Paramount, which would begin with a role in a feature called Skippy. Jackie Cooper also was offered a role on that feature and a contract.
Cooper would remain at Paramount. Haines, on the other hand, would quickly leave Paramount to return to Hal Roach Studios just in time for the 1931-1932 season. At that point, several major characters had left the series because they were perceived as too old. This left a depleted Our Gang of only three regulars and a few recurring characters. Haines would resume his role as a recurring character with an occasional speaking role for the next two seasons.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, Haines joined the Army Air Force and rose to the rank of lieutenant. He was listed as missing in action in February 1943. His body was never found.
Tags:
Donald
Haines
Our
Gang
MIA
Added: 10th September 2011
Views: 747
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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