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Often credited as the greatest comedian of all time, Peter Sellers was born to a well-off English acting family on Sept 8, 1925. His mother and father worked in an acting company run by his grandmother. As a child, Sellers was spoiled, as his parents' first child had died at birth. He enlisted in the army and fought during World War II, where he met Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, who would become his future workmates. After the war he set up a review in London, which was a combination of music (he played the drums) and impressions. Then, all of a sudden, he burst into prominence as the voices of numerous favorites on "The Goon Show" (1951-1960), making his debut in films in Penny Points to Paradise (1951) and Down Among the Z Men (1952), before making it big as one of the criminals in The Ladykillers (1955). These small but showy roles continued throughout the 1950s, but he got his first big break playing the dogmatic union man, Fred Kite, in I'm All Right Jack (1959). The film's success led to starring vehicles into the 1960s that showed off his extreme comic ability to its fullest, but after the relative failure of What's New, Pussycat (1965), which was Woody Allen's first film, Sellers embarked on a rapid downfall to "Grade Z" movies in the 1970s, all of which he claimed to have made only because he needed the money. In 1972 he read the book "Being There" and decided to make it into a film. It took him seven years to finally bring it to the screen, but it earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination (he lost to Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of "Superdad" in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)). Being There (1979) proved to be somewhat of a last hurray for Sellers, as he died the following year. His last movie, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980), completed just before his death, proved to be another flop. Director Blake Edwards' attempt at reviving the Pink Panther series after Sellers' death resulted in two panned 1980s comedies, the first of which, Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), deals with Inspector Clouseau's disappearance and was made from material cut from previous Pink Panther films and includes interviews with the original casts playing their original characters.
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peter
sellers
the
pink
panther
british
comedy
films
Added: 8th September 2007
Views: 689
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Posted By: Sophia |
 
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One of the most intriguing missing persons cases is that of Toronto theatre magnate Ambrose J. Small. Small was last seen alive on December 2, 1919 after selling his theatre chain for $1 million dollars--a fantastic sum in those days. He lunched with his wife Theresa at the King Edward Hotel, gave her the check to deposit in their bank account, bought some newspapers from a young street vendor--and vanished forever. Small's disappearance was not reported to the police by his wife for nearly two weeks, leading to speculation that she was involved. Theresa was well known in Toronto for her charitable deeds and was used to Ambrose vanishing without warning for extended periods while away on gambling binges. To spare Theresa embarrassment, the Toronto Police did not formally announce Small was missing until his disappearance was reported in the Toronto Star in January 1920. Small had made his fortune in the theatre business staging low-brow plays often with risque themes. After his disappearance it was discovered that Small had a secret 'love nest' above his Grand Opera House in Toronto where he often 'entertained' chorus girls. Not long after Small vanished, his bookkeeper John Doughty vanished too with $105,000 in bonds taken from Small's safe deposit box. Doughty was later found in Oregon and arrested for theft. He was given a five-year prison sentence. Despite international headlines and a $50,000 reward, no trace of Small was ever found. An elderly Grand Opera House employee claimed to have overheard a violent argument between Small and Doughty on the afternoon Small vanished. The case was officially closed by Toronto police in 1960. Modern investigators recently found a memo written by an investigating officer in 1936, a year after Theresa died. The memo stated there was ample evidence that Ambrose Small had been murdered and that both Theresa Small and John Doughty were guilty of the crime--indicating that the Toronto Police were somehow involved in a major cover-up. The ghost of Ambrose Small is said to haunt one of his old theatres in London, Ontario.
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Ambrose
Small
disappearance
Added: 15th December 2007
Views: 227
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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One of the oddest sports stories ever is the disappearance of Bill Barilko of the Toronto Maple Leafs. In the spring of 1951, Barilko became a Leafs hero when he scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal against the Montreal Canadiens. That summer, Barilko and a dentist friend, Dr. Henry Hudson, flew to northern Quebec in the dentist's private plane to do some fishing on the Seal River. For their return home, they loaded the plane's pontoons with 120 pounds of fish they had caught, took off for southern Ontario--and were not seen alive again. The RCMP began a huge search for the missing men. (Some thought the police's interest in the case was far beyond what might be expected.) Nearly eleven years passed before the plane's wreckage was discovered in a densely wooded area of northern Ontario. The skeletal remains of Barilko and Hudson were found in the plane. Oddly enough, the plane was facing the opposite direction one would expect--and the 120 pounds of fish were not found in the pontoons. One persistent and fascinating rumor insists that Barilko, who hailed from a gold-mining community, was using his dentist friend as a mule to move a significant quantity of gold nuggets and dust he had illegally obtained from the mine. (Since dentists need gold for fillings, they have connections with gold suppliers.) The plane's pontoons had mysteriously been sliced open.
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Baiil
Barilko
mystery
Added: 30th May 2008
Views: 150
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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In 1970 a sensational book, Amelia Earhart Lives, was published by McGraw-Hill. Its author, Joe Klaas, claimed the woman in this photograph, Irene Bolan, was actually missing aviator Amelia Earhart! Klaas' claimed that Earhart's attempted round-the-world flight and disappearance was all part of an elaborate pre-Second World War spy mission. Klaas' tale was based on information received by Major Joseph Gervais. Gervais had a chance encounter with Bolan at a 1965 air show and was surprised by the resemblance between Bolan and Earhart (who had vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937). Klass further asserted that modern photographic analysis techniques proved that Bolan and Earhart had identical facial features--right down to the tear ducts. Bolan was a pilot too, but skeptics doubted Klass' claim. An outraged Bolan sued McGraw-Hill for $1.5 million. The book was pulled and the parties settled out of court. Still, there are some people who think Klaas was right...
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Amelia
Earhart
Irene
Bolan
Added: 9th July 2008
Views: 200
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Renowned band leader Glenn Miller's disappearance in 1944 has led to some interesting speculation. On December 15, 1944, Miller, a major in the U.S. Army, and two other military personnel departed from an RAF base in England in a small aircraft bound for Paris. Miller was scheduled to meet with his band and begin a concert tour for U.S troops in recently liberated areas of France. Miller's airplane never arrived. No wreckage nor any bodies were ever found. The prevailing wisdom is that bad weather over the English Channel caused the plane to crash into the sea killing all aboard. Two other possibilities have emerged: That same day a squadron of bombers destined for Germany had their mission aborted because of the inclement weather. Unable to return with their payload of explosives, the squadron was ordered to jettison their bombs into the English Channel. Years later one aviator claimed some of the discarded bombs accidentally caused a small aircraft flying below the squadron--which could have been Miller's--to crash into the sea. A more lurid tale claims Miller landed safely in France but died of a heart attack in a Parisian brothel. According to this yarn, Miller's seedy death was covered up by the military for propaganda reasons. This latter rumor circulated during the war and was given new life when the German tabloid Bild reprinted the brothel tale in 1997. Miller biographers consider that story to be sheer nonsense. They rightly ask, 'What became of Flight Officer John Morgan and Lt. Col. Norman F. Baessell (the other two men aboard Miller's plane) who also vanished?'
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Glenn
Miller
disappearance
Added: 14th July 2008
Views: 182
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Toronto's Arthur Irwin was the man who invented the baseball gove. In 1884, while playing with the National League's Providence Grays, Irwin broke two fingers on his catching hand. In order to keep playing, he wore a carriage driver's glove filled with cotton. At first Irwin was derided as a sissy, but within a decade almost all major leaguers were wearing gloves in the field. However, Irwin is most famous for the double life he led as a bigamist--one that only became known after he died. On July 16, 1921, Irwin was aboard a New York to Bston ship, the Calvin Murphy. He told a fellow passenger he was going home to Boston to die. The next morning, Irwin was nowhere to be found. It was surmised that he either jumped or fell overboard. Irwin left behind a grieving wife and family in Boston--and a grieving wife and family in New York City! Neither family had any inkling of the other's existence. Irwin's body was never found, leading to speculation that he had faked his death. For years there were rumors he was living in rural Georgia under an assumed name. Irwin's sister answered the accusations by saying, 'With Arthur, you never know.'
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Arthur
Irwin
bigamist
disappearance
Added: 16th August 2008
Views: 91
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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