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Cliff Robertson, who starred as John F. Kennedy in a 1963 World War II drama and later won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a mentally disabled bakery janitor in the movie "Charly," died Saturday, one day after his 88th birthday.
Robertson, who also played a real-life role as the whistle-blower in the check-forging scandal of then-Columbia Pictures President David Begelman that rocked Hollywood in the late 1970s, died at Stony Brook University Medical Center on Long Island, according to Evelyn Christel, his longtime personal secretary. His family said he died of natural causes.
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Cliff
Robertson
passes
today
at
age
88
1960s
Warner
Bros
Cliff
Robertson
Jack
John
Kennedy
JFK
David
Buttolph
William
Lava
president
war
warfare
WW2
crew
boat
pacific
attack
Added: 10th September 2011
Views: 590
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Posted By: Old Fart |
 
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The 1970s saw the beginning of the mascot craze in professional baseball. Before the 1984 season, the San Francisco Giants polled their fans about having a team mascot. The survey indicated that 65% of their fans preferred having no mascot whatsoever. Undeterred, the lowly Giants decided introduced a mascot--but with their own special twist: They created an 'anti-mascot.'
The creature they unleashed was the infamous Crazy Crab (see photo below). The idea was to poke fun at traditional mascots. Local television commercials depicted manager Frank Robinson having to be restrained from attacking the crustacean. One critic said the mascot looked like "a wart with distemper." Giant fans were encouraged to boo and hiss the phony mascot, who was portrayed by actor Wayne Doba. The prodding worked all too well. With an awful 96-loss season soothing no souls, Crazy Crab became the object of hatred and abuse--an easy target for disgruntled fans. The crowd would hurl all sorts of things at the beast, both verbally and literally. Even the players got into the act, dumping drinks and other things into the suit. Broadcasters Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper, both Giant players during the year of Crazy Crab, were asked if they ever had trouble with him. Their response: 'No, we used to drill him with the rosin bag daily, so he was scared of us.'
The nightmare for the bug-eyed object of derision ended after just one season. The Giants would not attempt another mascot, 'anti' or real, until 1997. Nevertheless, as late as 2010 there was an unsuccessful Internet campaign to resurrect Crazy Crab.
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baseball
San
Franciso
Giants
crab
mascot
Added: 22nd September 2011
Views: 656
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Robert Hegyes, best known for playing Juan Epstein—one of Gabe Kaplan's "star" pupils—in Welcome Back, Kotter, died this morning after an apparent heart attack, according to New Jersey's Star Ledger. He was 60.
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Added: 27th January 2012
Views: 452
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Posted By: pfc |
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TMZ reported and Dick Clark's spokesman Paul Shefrin confirms he had a massive heart attack and passed away this morning.
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Dick
Clark
dies
dead
Rockin'
New
Years
Eve
Added: 18th April 2012
Views: 259
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Posted By: Cliffy |
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Even though Marion Lorne had five decades of stage work on her resume, she didn't become widely famous as an actress until the last few years of her life. Her occasional role as the befuddled, forgetful, and utterly lovable Aunt Clara on the sitcom Bewitched made her a TV favorite. In her episodes on the show, Clara (who was one of Samantha Stevens' relatives, and thus a witch) would unintentionally cause chaos in the Stevens household with her inability to control her spell-casting powers. Lorne was awarded a well deserved Emmy for her role in 1968. Sadly, the award came posthumusly; she had died of a heart attack at age 82 a few weeks earlier. Elizabeth Montgomery accepted the Emmy on Lorne's behalf.
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Bewitched
Marion
Lorne
Added: 27th April 2012
Views: 905
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Bob Crane will forever be remembered by TV fans as the actor who played Colonel Robert Hogan in the sitcom Hogan's Heroes from 1965 to 1971. Crane was an amateur photographer. During the run of the show, co-star Richard Dawson introduced Crane to John Henry Carpenter, who worked with the video department at Sony Electronics and had access to early videotape recorders. Crane, a notorious womanizer, arranged for Carpenter to secretly and frequently photograph Crane's plentiful sexual escapades using this new technology.
In 1978, Crane was appearing in Scottsdale, AZ in the play Beginner's Luck at the Windmill Dinner Theatre. On the night of June 28, Crane allegedly phoned Carpenter to tell him that their friendship was over. The following day, Crane was discovered bludgeoned to death in bed at the Winfield Place Apartments in Scottsdale. The murder weapon was never found--but police believed it to be a camera tripod. Crane was two weeks shy of his 50th birthday. Crane likely knew his assailant and was comfortable with him/her being in the room: He was known as a light sleeper and there were no signs of struggle. A bottle of scotch whiskey was found in Crane's room. Crane did not drink scotch.
According to the program Cold Case Files, police at the crime scene noted that Carpenter called the apartment several times and did not seem surprised that the police were there. The car Carpenter had rented the previous day was impounded. In it, several blood smears were found that matched Crane's blood type. DNA testing, which might have confirmed that it was Crane's blood, did not exist yet. Due to insufficient evidence, Maricopa County Attorney Charles F. Hyder declined to file charges.
The case was reopened in 1990, 12 years after the murder. A 1978 attempt to test the blood found in the car that Carpenter had rented resulted in a match to Bob Crane's blood type, but it failed to produce any additional results. DNA testing in 1990 could not be completed due to an insufficient remaining sample. Detectives Barry Vassall and Jim Raines instead hoped that additional witnesses and a picture of a possible piece of brain tissue found in the rental car (which had been lost since the original investigation) would incriminate Carpenter. He was arrested and held for trial after a preliminary hearing before a Superior Court judge who ruled that evidence justified a trial by jury.
During Carpenter's 1994 trial, defense attorneys attacked the prosecution's case as circumstantial and inconclusive. They denied that Carpenter and Crane were on bad terms; they further said the theory that a camera tripod was the murder weapon was sheer speculation based on Carpenter's occupation. They also disputed the claim that the rediscovered photo showed brain tissue, and they noted that authorities did not have any such tissue. The defense pointed out that Crane had been videotaped and photographed in compromising sexual positions with numerous women, implying that a jealous person or someone fearing blackmail might have been the killer.
Carpenter was found not guilty. He maintained his innocence until his own death on September 4, 1998. Bob Crane's murder remains officially unsolved.
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Bob
Crane
murder
unsolved
Added: 30th April 2012
Views: 1193
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Death Wish was a 1974 movie loosely based on a 1972 novel by Brian Garfield. The plot focuses on the relentless vigilantism of a seemingly mild-mannered architecht Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson), a Korean War veteran. Kersey methodically pursues the band of criminals who raped and killed his wife during a home invasion. (Kersey's married daughter is also raped and suffers permanent psychological damage.) The film was notweorthy for its disturbing realism in the home-invasion scene and the ruthlessness in which Kersey stalks and mercilessly kills the culprits. The film received mixed to extremely negative reviews upon its release due to its support of vigilantism, but it had an impact on U.S. audiences. People were known to loudly cheer widely during the revenge-killing scenes. The movie did especially well at the box office in violence-plagued urban areas. Four sequels were made in the next two decades. Not surprisingly, the Death Wish films caused widespread debate over how to deal with rampant urban crime.
Many critics were displeased with the film. One declared it to be an "immoral threat to society" and an encouragement of antisocial behavior. Vincent Canby of the New York Times was one of the most outspoken writers, condemning Death Wish in two extensive articles. Author Brian Garfield was also unhappy with the how the film varied greatly from his book. He called the film 'incendiary', and stated that each of the following sequels are all pointless and rancid, since they all advocate vigilantism unlike his two novels which are the exact opposite. Bronson defended the film: He felt it was intended to be a commentary on violence and was meant to attack violence, not romanticize it. Over time many critics began to warm to the original film more than the four sequels, which were more exploitative and contrived.
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Death
Wish
movies
Charles
Bronson
vigilantism
Added: 16th May 2012
Views: 411
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Tyrone Power was one of Hollywood's most popular actors from his debut in 1936 until the time of his untimely death in 1958. In 1957, the twice-divorced Power met Deborah Ann Montgomery Minardos. They were married on May 7, 1958, just after Power's 44th birthday. She became pregnant soon afterward. In September 1958, Power and his wife travelled to Madrid and Valdespartera, Spain to film Solomon and Sheba under the direction of King Vidor. Deborah Ann was worried about Tyrone's health and asked him to slow down, but he pushed ahead with the movie. He had filmed about 75 percent of his scenes when he was stricken with a massive heart attack while he was filming a strenuous dueling scene with his frequent co-star and friend, George Sanders. He died en route to the hospital. Yul Brynner was hastily brought in to take over Power's role of Solomon. The filmmakers used some of the long shots that Power had filmed, and an observant fan can see him in some of the scenes, particularly in the middle of the duel.
Power's last role was a familiar one, with sword in hand. He is perhaps best remembered as a swashbuckler, and, indeed, he was reportedly one of the finest swordsmen in Hollywood. Director Henry King said, "People always seem to remember Ty with sword in hand, although he once told me he wanted to be a character actor. He actually was quite good – among the best swordsmen in films."
Power was buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery at noon on November 21, 1958, in a military service. (This is a photo of his grave marker.) His son, Tyrone Power Jr., was born on January 22, 1959.
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death
Tyrone
Power
actor
Added: 26th May 2012
Views: 1381
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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One of the most perplexing missing persons cases in Canadian history is that of eight-year-old Nicole Morin. On Tuesday, July 30, 1985 Nicole, clad in a one-piece peach swimsuit and carrying a blanket and beach towel, left her penthouse apartment in Toronto's Etobicoke area...and vanished. She never reached the apartment's lobby where a friend named Jennifer was waiting for her. In nearly three decades there has been no trace of Nicole--who was likely abducted moments after leaving the apartment.
At 10:30 a.m. Nicole had gone to the lobby of the apartment building to collect the mail. She returned to her 20th-floor apartment and got ready to go swimming with a playmate in the building's supervised outdoor pool. Before leaving the apartment, Nicole spoke to Jennifer via the building's intercom and promised to be right down. At about 11 a.m. Nicole said goodbye to her mother Jeanette, who was busy running a small daycare service she operated from her apartment. Nicole went out the door--and was never seen again.
Jennifer waited about 15 minutes before buzzing the apartment again to find out why Nicole hadn't arrived at the lobby. Jeanette assumed Nicole was dawdling and was not unduly concerned. Eventually Jennifer went to the pool on her own, but Nicole never showed up. Several hours went by before Nicole's mother realized something was terribly amiss and alerted the police. A thorough search turned up no clues whatsoever. A week later the case was turned over to the homocide department. Jeanette died of a heart attack in 2007. Nicole's father, Art, who was estranged from his ex-wife in 1985 and has an ironclad alibi for that day, still clings to the unlikely hope that Nicole is alive somewhere. (She would have turned 35 on April 1, 2012.) One unsubstantiated theory Art proffered in a 2010 interview with the Toronto Star is that someone connected to his ex-wife took Nicole to prevent him from gaining custody. Well after her disappearance, a school notebook of Nicole's was found to have the tantalizing phrase, "I am going to disappear" written in it. Investigators delcared it to be a statement of childhood fantasy rather than a meaningful clue.
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missing
child
Nicole
Morin
Canada
Added: 12th June 2012
Views: 1015
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Nickelodeon Commercials December 11, 1993
1. "Looney Tunes" End Credits
2. Up Next...
3. Dimension Cable
4. Promo for "Rugrats: The Santa Experience"
5. Shark Attack (OMG I totally forgot about this)
6. Kirby's Pinball Land
7. Happy Chanukah Bumper
8. "Muppet Matinee" Commercial Bumper
9. Lickin' Lizards (With Michelle Trachtenberg)
10. Baby Get Well (Yep, the cheeks of babies glow neon pink when they're feverish)
11. Huffy Dr. Shock (Dr. Shock is still recovering from his mental breakdown and is prohibited from working with bicycles per a court order)
12. Chuck E. Cheese's
13. Alpha-Bits
14. Barbie Golden Dreams Motorhome
15. Barbie Fountain Pool
16. Promo for "Muppet Babies"
17. "Muppet Matinee" Commercial Bumpers
18. Promo for "Can't Wait 'til Christmas Week"
19. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Am I watching a video game commercial or some weird music video for an alternative band?)
20. Kirby's Dreamland (As the owner of a Game Gear, I sort of missed out on the whole Kirby thing)
21. Apple Jacks (With Devin Ratray aka Buzz from the "Home Alone" movies)
22. Station ID (Awesome)
23. "Muppet Matinee" Commercial Bumper
24. Aladdin Gift Set
25. Sally Secrets (So she hides stickers in her prosthetic feet? Neat)
26. X-Men Video Pack at Pizza Hut (That poster is amazing)
27. Stack-a-saurus Nex (I forgot so many of these cheesy electronic board games)
28. Eat At Ralph's (Vomitastic!)
29. Power Wheels Barbie Lamborghini (While watching her spoiled, delusional child drive around the block, little Cindy's mother thought to herself, "What sort of monster have I created?")
30. Promo for "Can't Wait 'til Christmas Week"
31. "Muppet Matinee" Commercial Bumpers
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Nickelodeon
Commercials
December
11
1993
Added: 19th August 2012
Views: 508
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Posted By: masonx31 |
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