Los Angeles – February 11, 1957: Jayne Mansfield Hit As Cigarette Girl Jayne Mansfield sells customer David Rosslaw a pack of cigarettes during charity banquet here last night and apparently, judging from expressions of unidentified spectators, was a success in her temporary role. About a dozen girls including Zsa Zsa Gabor and Marie Wilson, roamed the floor for about ten minutes during the evening but giving no change as profits went to local charity. Hundreds, including many Hollywood celebrities attended. photo: AP wirephoto
The news slug does not identify the charity Jayne was collecting for. Continue reading →
Fred MacMurray & Carole Lombard Skeet Shooting Between Takes
More Deadly Than The Male!
Carole Lombard, blonde screen star, killed two kinds of birds with one gun in this skeet shooting match against Fred MacMurray and writer Claude Binyou while on location with Paramount’s “True Confession” company at Lake Arrowhead. Not only did Carole blast the clay pigeons with unerring accuracy. She also bagged two masculine egos, thoroughly puncturing the pretensions of MacMurray (waiting to shoot) and Binyou (operating the trap) to superior marksmanship. photo: Tom Evans for Paramount 1937
Among the many things that drew Clark Gable to Carole Lombard was that she was one of the guys. Lombard was also a favorite among studio stagehands and technicians.
In Gable & Lombard & Powell & Harlow, 1975 (Dell) by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein the following story illustrates the sort of loyalty that made Lombard so appealing. Continue reading →
Johnny Carson Looks At Press Photos With Bob Uecker, Going Over Bob’s Legendary Baseball Career
In the mid-90s actor Leslie Nielsen was doing publicity for a comedic book “Bad Golf My Way.” The radio stations who set up interviews with Nielsen expected the star of “Airplane” and “Police Squad / The Naked Gun” to be as witty as the man who was in those movies.
While Leslie Nielsen had a sense of humor he was not a funny man. The public seems to forget that writers write those funny lines for actors to say.
Nielsen did his best, doing four hours of back to back interviews with FM stations across the country. But the radio hosts mostly got a reality check. Just because you’re a comedic actor does not translate into being a funny guest.
On the other hand Bob Uecker was a professional baseball catcher for six seasons in the 1960s who had a career .200 batting average. While Uecker was by his own estimate not a particularly good ballplayer, he was very funny. Uecker parlayed his natural sense of humor into a fifty year career as a baseball announcer and talk show guest, and he is still going strong, The 87-year-old Uecker remains the radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Here is Uecker’s seventh appearance on The Tonight Show, September 23, 1971.
What makes this clip rare is that for the first 10 years that Carson hosted The Tonight Show from New York, almost every tape was subsequently erased. Continue reading →
Benny Goodman and Frank Sinatra “Switch” Instruments
No news caption is attached to explain this 1943 publicity photograph of bandleader Benny Goodman “singing” and crooner Frank Sinatra “playing” the clarinet. Continue reading →
The “Oomph Girl” Ann Sheridan Does Her Spring Training
I made a positive print of this undated photographic negative, identified as Ann Sheridan. If correct, it is a very early publicity photo of the actress nicknamed the “Oomph Girl.” Besides that, there is no information about when or where the photo was taken or who the man in uniform with Sheridan is.
Obviously the photo was taken at a beach. At first glance the man squatting with the big smile resembles Continue reading →
Indians About To Tackle The Cameraman? No, Just A Foot Race At Spring Training 1954
Here we see the Cleveland Indians at spring training in 1954. The news slug reads:
Tucson, Arizona: Speed is what manager Al Lopez wants and these three outfielders got it. They are left to right – Larry Doby, Gale Wade and Dave Philley. photo : UPI Telephoto 3/5/54
They’ve been called the Cleveland Indians since 1915 but the team will abandon their moniker after the 2021 season.
Are Native Americans truly offended by the name Indians? With partisan and politically motivated surveys and popular polls there is contradictory evidence that self-identifying Native Americans are bothered by the name “Indians.” Continue reading →
Greer Garson – Acting Talent Does Not Equate To Being A Good Talk Show Guest
Greer Garson (1904-1996) was a fine and talented actress. Anyone seeing her deeply moving performances in Goodbye Mr. Chips or Mrs. Miniver can attest to that.
Garson won the Academy Award for her portrayal as the title character in Mrs. Miniver. Six additional Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role affirm that her colleagues appreciated Garson’s acting skills.
But according to Craig Tennis, a former talent coordinator of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from 1968-1976, Greer Garson was not great when it came to spontaneity. Continue reading →
Jack Benny and Wife Mary Livingstone Dine At Ciro’s 1955
Jack Benny and his wife Mary, enjoy an evening at Ciro’s in Hollywood. Benny started his career in the entertainment world as a doorman at a theater in Waukegan, Illinois, his birthplace. The Benny’s have been married 28 years. photo: Inside Hollywood by Nat Dallinger for King Features Syndicate week of August 12, 1955
Barbara Stanwyck Thanks “Golden Boy” For Her Honorary Oscar 1982
In a six decade career Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) received four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in a leading role. The films were Stella Dallas (1937); Ball of Fire (1941); Double Indemnity (1944) and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). She did not win for any of these great performances in fine pictures.
Stanwyck and William Holden starred together in the 1939 film Golden Boy. It was Holden’s first starring role. And he was almost fired. But Barbara Stanwyck insisted Holden stay on the film. The two became lifelong friends.
At the April 3, 1978 Academy Awards presentation, William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck were reunited as co-presenters for the award for best sound.
This was the era before everyone handing out awards had every word scripted for them and was littered with politically correct, back-slapping fake accolades and bad jokes. What happened next was completely genuine, unrehearsed and quite touching as you will see by Stanwyck’s reaction.
Finally four years later on March 29, 1982, the Academy recognized Stanwyck with an honorary Oscar for “superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting.”Continue reading →
Columbus Circle 1947 photo: Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California Museum of Photography
Our scene shows Columbus Circle looking south from Broadway and 60th Street towards 8th Avenue.
In the foreground are two examples of the iron and glass subway kiosks providing graceful entrances and exits to the original subway. By the late-1960s all the ornamental kiosks were removed by the city. Continue reading →
Los Angeles – February 11, 1957: Jayne Mansfield Hit As Cigarette Girl
