Remembering Thelma Todd

Thelma Todd (July 29, 1906) was an American actress. Appearing in about 120 pictures between 1926 and 1935.

Birth Name: Thelma Alice Todd
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Blue
Nickname: Hot Toddy
Height: 5' 4"

During the silent film era, Todd appeared in numerous supporting roles that made full use of her beauty but gave her little chance to act. With the advent of the talkies, Todd was given opportunity to expand her roles when producer Hal Roach signed her to appear with such comedy stars as Harry Langdon, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy. In 1931

she was given her own series, teaming with ZaSu Pitts for slapstick comedies. This was Roach's attempt to create a female version of Laurel and Hardy. When Pitts left Roach in 1933, she was replaced by Patsy Kelly. The Todd shorts often cast her as a working girl having all sorts of problems, and trying her best to remain poised and charming despite the embarrassing antics of her sidekick.

Todd became highly regarded as a capable film comedian, and Roach loaned her out to other studios to play opposite Wheeler & Woolsey, Buster Keaton, Joe E. Brown, and the Marx Brothers. She also appeared successfully in such dramas as the original 1931 film version of The Maltese Falcon starring Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, in which she played Miles Archer's treacherous widow.

During her career she appeared in 119 films although many of these were short films, and was sometimes publicized as "The Ice Cream Blonde". In August 1934, she opened a successful cafe at Pacific Palisades, called Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe, attracting a diverse clientele of Hollywood celebrities as well as many tourists.

Todd continued her short-subject series through 1935, and was featured in the full-length Laurel and Hardy comedy The Bohemian Girl. This was her last film; she died after completing all of her scenes, but most of them were re-shot. Producer Roach deleted all of Todd's dialogue and limited her appearance to one musical number.

On the morning of December 16, 1935, Thelma Todd was found dead in her car inside the garage of Jewel Carmen, a former actress and former wife of Todd's lover and business partner, Roland West. Subsequently a grand jury probe was held to determine whether Todd's death was a murder. The case was closed by the Homicide Bureau, which listed the death as "accidental with possible suicide tendencies."

Remembering Jeff Chandler

Jeff Chandler (born December 15, 1918) was an American actor, film producer and singer best remembered for playing Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950), for which he was Oscar nominated.

Birth Name: Ira Grossel
Hair: Black (premature gray)
Eyes: Green
Nickname: Big Gray
Height: 6' 4"
Quote: "Today, for a man to be a hit on the screen, he has to take his shirt off."

After being discharged from the Army, Chandler moved to Los Angeles in December 1945 with $3,000 he had saved. Chandler had appeared on air in Rogue's Gallery with Dick Powell, who was impressed by the actor and put pressure on Columbia to give Chandler his first film role, a one-line part as a gangster in Johnny O'Clock (1947). He received more attention playing Eve Arden's boyfriend on radio in Our Miss Brooks, which debuted in July 1948 and became a massive hit.

Chandler's performance in Our Miss Brooks brought him to the attention of executives at Universal, who were looking for someone to play an Israeli leader in Sword in the Desert (1948). He was cast in February 1949.[16] Chandler impressed studio executives so much with his work that shortly into filming Universal signed him to a seven-year contract. His first movie under the arrangement was a supporting role in Abandoned (1949).

Writer-director Delmer Daves was looking for an actor to play Cochise in a Western, Broken Arrow (1950), over at 20th Century Fox. The part was proving tricky to cast; in Chandler's words, "Fox were looking for a guy big enough physically to play the role and unfamiliar enough to moviegoers to lend authenticity." Chandler's performance as a similar resistance-leader-type in Sword of the Desert brought him to the studio's attention and he was borrowed from Universal for the role in May 1949.As part of the arrangement Chandler signed a deal with Fox to make a movie a year with them for six years.

Broken Arrow turned out to be a considerable hit, earning Chandler an Oscar nomination and establishing him as a star. He was the first actor nominated for an Academy Award for portraying an American Indian.

In 1952 exhibitors voted Chandler the 22nd most popular star in the US.

While working on Merrill's Marauders in the Philippines, on April 15, 1961, Chandler injured his back while playing baseball with U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers who served as extras in the film. He had injections to deaden the pain and enable him to finish the production.

On May 13, 1961, he entered a Culver City hospital and had surgery for a spinal disc herniation. There were severe complications when an artery was damaged and Chandler hemorrhaged. He died on June 17, 1961 at age 42.

Remembering Patty Duke

Patty Duke (born December 14, 1946) was an American actress of stage, film, and television.

Birth Name: Anna Marie Duke
Hair: Light Brown
Eyes: Blue
Nickname: Patty
Height: 5'
Quote: "Actors take risks all the time. We put ourselves on the line. It is creative to be able to interpret someone's words and breathe life into them."

She first became known as a teen star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16 for her role as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1962), a role which she had originated on Broadway. The following year she was given her own show, The Patty Duke Show, in which she played "identical cousins".

She later progressed to more mature roles such as that of Neely O'Hara in the film Valley of the Dolls (1967).

 Over the course of her career, she received ten Emmy Award nominations and three Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Duke also served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1985 to 1988.

Duke was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1982, after which she devoted much of her time to advocating for and educating the public on mental health issues.

Duke died on the morning of March 29, 2016  of sepsis from a ruptured intestine at the age of 69.

Recommended Films:

The Miracle Worker (1962)
The Daydreamer (1966)
Valley of the Dolls (1967)

Celebrating Dick Van Dyke

Dick Van Dyke (born December 13, 1925) is an American actor, comedian, writer, singer, dancer, and producer whose career in entertainment has spanned almost seven decades.

Birth Name: Richard Wayne Van Dyke
Hair: Light Brown
Eyes: Blue
Nickname: "Dick"
Height: 6' 1"
Quote: "I've retired so many times now it's getting to be a habit."

Van Dyke starred in the films Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Mary Poppins (1964), and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and in the TV series The Dick Van Dyke Show and Diagnosis: Murder.

Beginning in 2006, he was introduced to a new generation through his role as Cecil Fredericks in the popular Night at the Museum film series.

Recipient of five Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy, Van Dyke was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995. He received the Screen Actors Guild's highest honor, the SAG Life Achievement Award, in 2013.

Van Dyke has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard and has also been recognized as a Disney Legend.

He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke and father of Barry Van Dyke.

Remembering Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra (born December 12, 1915) was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.

Birth Name: Francis Albert Sinatra
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Nickname: "Ol' Blue Eyes"
Height: 5' 7"
Quote: "A friend is never an imposition"

Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". He released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatra's professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity and his subsequent Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958) and Nice 'n' Easy (1960).

Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and received critical acclaim for his performance in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), and toward the end of his career he became associated with playing detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967). On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums. In 1965 he recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way". After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968's collaboration with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later and recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace. In 1980 he scored a Top 40 hit with "New York, New York". Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death on May 14, 1998, aged 82, after a heart attack..

Remembering Marie Windsor

Marie Windsor (born December 11, 1919)  was an actress known as "The Queen of the Bs" because she appeared in so many B-movies and film noirs.

Birth Name: Emily Marie Bertelsen
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5' 9"
Quote: "I had to do a tango with George Raft and I learned to dance in ballet shoes with my knees bent."

In 1940, after moving to Hollywood, and entering Maria Ouspenskaya's drama school, she appeared in the play Forty Thousand Smiths, her first use of the stage name Marie Windsor. The next year she appeared in Once in a Lifetime at the Pasadena Playhouse. She also was seen as a villainess in a New York production of Follow the Girls.

After working for several years as a telephone operator, a stage and radio actress, and a bit and extra player in films, Windsor began playing feature parts on the big screen in 1947. Her first film contract, with Warner Bros. in 1942, resulted from her writing jokes and submitting them to Jack Benny. Windsor said she submitted the gags under the name M.E. Windsor "because I was afraid he might be prejudiced against a woman gag writer." When Benny finally met Windsor, "he was stunned by her good looks" and had a producer sign her to a contract.  After a tenure with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which the studio "signed her, put her in two small roles and then promptly forgot her", she signed a seven-year contract with The Enterprise Studios in 1948.

The 5'9" actress's first memorable role was in 1948 opposite John Garfield in Force of Evil playing seductress Edna Tucker. She had roles in numerous 1950s film noirs, notably The Sniper, The Narrow Margin, City That Never Sleeps, and Stanley Kubrick's heist movie, The Killing, in which she played Elisha Cook Jr.'s scheming wife. She also made a foray into science fiction with the 1953 release of Cat-Women of the Moon.  Windsor co-starred with Randolph Scott in The Bounty Hunter (1954).

Later, Windsor moved to television. She appeared in 1954 as Belle Starr in the premiere episode of Stories of the Century. In 1962, she played "Ann Jesse", a woman dying in childbirth, in the episode "The Wanted Man" of Lawman. She appeared on such programs as Maverick, Bat Masterson, Perry Mason, Bourbon Street Beat, The Incredible Hulk, Rawhide, General Hospital, Salem's Lot (TV miniseries), and Murder, She Wrote.

Windsor worked consistently through the '60s and '70s, and remained on screen once or so annually clear up to the 1990s, playing her final role at 72 in 1991.

Windsor died of congestive heart failure on December 10, 2000......one day before her 81st birthday.

Remembering Edward G. Robinson

Edward G. Robinson (born  December 12, 1893) was a Romanian-born American actor. He is ranked #24 in the American Film Institute's list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classic American cinema.

Birth Name: Emanuel Goldenberg
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5' 7"
Nickname: "Eddie"
Quote: "To my mind, the actor has this great responsibility of playing another human being . . . it's like taking on another person's life and you have to do it as sincerely and honestly as you can.."

A popular star on stage and screen during Hollywood's Golden Age, he appeared in 40 Broadway plays and more than 100 films during a 50-year career. He is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as a gangster, such as his star-making film Little Caesar and Key Largo.

During the 1930s and 1940s, he was an outspoken public critic of fascism and Nazism which was then growing in Europe. His activism included contributing over $250,000 to more than 850 organizations involved in war relief, along with cultural, educational and religious groups. During the 1950s, he was called to testify at the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare, but was cleared of any Communist involvement.

Robinson's character portrayals have covered a wide range, with such roles as an insurance investigator in the film noir Double Indemnity, Dathan (adversary of Moses) in The Ten Commandments, and his final performance in the science-fiction story Soylent Green.

Robinson received an Honorary Academy Award for his work in the film industry, which was posthumously awarded two months after his death on January 26, 1973 of bladder cancer at age 79. 

Celebrating Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas (born December 9, 1916) is an American actor, producer, director, and author. He is one of the last survivors of the industry's Golden Age.

Birth Name: Issur Danielovitch
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5' 9"
Nickname: Izzy
Quote: "I think half the success in life comes from first trying to find out what you really want to do. And then going ahead and doing it.."

After an impoverished childhood with immigrant parents and six sisters, he had his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s and 1960s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war movies. During a sixty-year acting career, he has appeared in over 90 movies, and in 1960 helped end the Hollywood Blacklist.

Douglas became an international star through positive reception for his leading role as an unscrupulous boxing hero in Champion (1949), which brought him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Other early films include Young Man with a Horn (1950), playing opposite Lauren Bacall and Doris Day; Ace in the Hole opposite Jan Sterling (1951); and Detective Story (1951). He received a second Oscar nomination for his dramatic role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), opposite Lana Turner, and his third nomination for portraying Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956).

In 1955, he established Bryna Productions, which began producing films as varied as Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960). In those two films, he starred and collaborated with then relatively unknown director, Stanley Kubrick. Douglas helped break the Hollywood blacklist by having Dalton Trumbo write Spartacus with an official on-screen credit, although Trumbo's family claims he overstated his role. He produced and starred in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), considered a cult classic, and Seven Days in May (1964), opposite Burt Lancaster, with whom he made seven films. In 1963, he starred in the Broadway play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a story he purchased, which he later gave to his son Michael Douglas, who turned it into an Oscar-winning film.

As an actor and philanthropist, Douglas has received three Academy Award nominations, an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As an author, he has written ten novels and memoirs. Currently, he is No. 17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male screen legends of classic Hollywood cinema, and the highest-ranked living person on the list. After barely surviving a helicopter crash in 1991 and then suffering a stroke in 1996, he has focused on renewing his spiritual and religious life. He lives with his second wife of more than 60 years, Anne, a producer. He turned 100 on December 9, 2016.

Remembering Sammy Davis Jr

Sammy Davis Jr. (born December 8, 1925) was an American entertainer. Primarily a dancer and singer, he was also an actor of stage and screen, comedian, musician, and impressionist, noted for his impersonations of actors, musicians and other celebrities.


Birth Name: Samuel George Davis Jr.
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5' 5"
Nickname: Smokey
Quote: "Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to get insulted."

At the age of 3, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father and Will Mastin as the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally. After military service, Davis returned to the trio. Davis became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, he lost his left eye in a car accident, and several years later, he converted to Judaism.

Davis's film career began as a child in 1933. In 1960, he appeared in the Rat Pack film Ocean's 11. After a starring role on Broadway in 1956's Mr Wonderful, he returned to the stage in 1964's Golden Boy. In 1966 he had his own TV variety show, titled The Sammy Davis Jr. Show.

Davis's career slowed in the late 1960s, but he had a hit record with "The Candy Man" in 1972 and became a star in Las Vegas, earning him the nickname "Mister Show Business".

Davis was a victim of racism throughout his life, particularly during the pre-Civil Rights era, and was a large financial supporter of the Civil Rights movement. Davis had a complex relationship with the black community, and drew criticism after physically embracing President Richard Nixon in 1972.

One day on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. "Handicap?" he asked. "Talk about handicap. I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew." This was to become a signature comment, recounted in his autobiography, and in countless articles.[8]

After reuniting with Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally, before he died of throat cancer on May 16, 1990 at age 64. 

Remembering Eli Walach

Eli Herschel Wallach (born December 7, 1915) was an American film, television and stage actor whose career spanned more than six decades.


Birth Name: Eli Herschel Wallach
Hair: Black
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5' 7"
Quote: "I never lost my appetite for acting."

Trained in stage acting, which he enjoyed doing most, he became "one of the greatest 'character actors' ever to appear on stage and screen"  with over 90 film credits. On stage, he often co-starred with his wife, Anne Jackson, becoming one of the best-known acting couples in the American theater.

Wallach initially studied method acting under Sanford Meisner, and later became a founding member of the Actors Studio, where he studied under Lee Strasberg. His versatility gave him the ability to play a wide variety of different roles throughout his career, primarily as a supporting actor.

For his debut screen performance in Baby Doll, he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe Award nomination. Among his other most famous roles are Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960), Guido in The Misfits (1961), and Tuco ("The Ugly") in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Other notable portrayals include outlaw Charlie Gant in How The West Was Won (1962), Don Altobello in The Godfather Part III, Cotton Weinberger in The Two Jakes (both 1990), and Arthur Abbott in The Holiday (2006). One of America's most prolific screen actors, Wallach remained active well into his nineties.

Wallach received BAFTA Awards, Tony Awards and Emmy Awards for his work, and received an Academy Honorary Award at the second annual Governors Awards, presented on November 13, 2010.

Wallach died on June 24, 2014 of natural causes at the age of 98.

Remembering Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Moorehead (December 6, 1900) was an American actress whose career of six decades included work in radio, stage, film, and television.


Birth Name: Agnes Robertson Moorehead
Hair: Red
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5' 4"
Nickname: "Aggie"
Quote: "It's an unavoidable truth. Fear of life closes off more opportunities for us than fear of death ever does."

She is chiefly known for her role as Endora on the television series Bewitched and as the voice of the friendly Mother Goose in Hanna-Barbera's 1973 adaptation of the E. B. White children's book Charlotte's Web.. She was also notable for her film roles in Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, All That Heaven Allows, Show Boat and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

While rarely playing lead roles, Moorehead's skill at character development and range earned her one Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe awards in addition to four Academy Award and six Emmy Award nominations. Moorehead's transition to television won acclaim for drama and comedy. She could play many different types, but often portrayed haughty, arrogant characters.

Moorehead died of uterine cancer on April 30, 1974. She was 73.

Remembering Walt Disney

Walt Disney (born December 5, 1901)  was an American entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer.

Birth Name: Walter Elias Disney
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5' 10"
Nickname: "Uncle Walt"
Quote: "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

 A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards earned by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney developed an early interest in drawing. He took art classes as a boy and got a job as a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. He moved to Hollywood in the early 1920s and set up the Disney Brothers Studio with his brother Roy. With Ub Iwerks, Walt developed the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, his first highly popular success; he also provided the voice for his creation in the early years. As the studio grew, Disney became more adventurous, introducing synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons and technical developments in cameras. The results, seen in features such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Fantasia, Pinocchio (both 1940), Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (1942), furthered the development of animated film. New animated and live-action films followed after World War II, including the critically successful Cinderella (1950) and Mary Poppins (1964), the latter of which received five Academy Awards.

In the 1950s, Disney expanded into the amusement park industry, and in 1955 he opened Disneyland. To fund the project he diversified into television programs, such as Walt Disney's Disneyland and The Mickey Mouse Club; he was also involved in planning the 1959 Moscow Fair, the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the 1964 New York World's Fair. In 1965, he began development of another theme park, Disney World, the heart of which was to be a new type of city, the "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow".

Disney was a shy, self-deprecating and insecure man in private but adopted a warm and outgoing public persona. He had high standards and high expectations of those with whom he worked.

Disney is considered a cultural icon, particularly in the United States, where the company he co-founded is one of the world's largest and best-known entertainment companies.

On December 15, ten days after his 65th birthday, Disney died of circulatory collapse caused by lung cancer.

Remembering Deanna Durbin

Deanna Durbin (born December 4, 1921), was a Canadian actress and singer, who appeared in musical films in the 1930s and 1940s.

Birth Name: Edna Mae Durbin
Hair: Red
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5' 3"
Nickname: "Winnepeg's Sweetheart"
Quote: "I couldn't go on forever being Little Miss Fixit who burst into song."

Durbin made her first film appearance in the short Every Sunday (1936) with a young Judy Garland. The film helped to prove the pair, as studio executives had questioned the wisdom of casting two female singers together.

Durbin signed a contract with Universal Studios, where she was given the professional name Deanna. She was 14 years old when she made her first feature-length film, Three Smart Girls (1936). Three Smart Girls was a success and established Durbin as a star. With Pasternak producing for Universal, Durbin went on to star in a string of successful musical films, including One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), Mad About Music (1938), That Certain Age (1938), Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939), and First Love (1939)—most of which were directed by Henry Koster.

The success of Durbin's films was reported to have saved Universal from bankruptcy. In 1938, she received an Academy Juvenile Award with Mickey Rooney. Her producer, Joe Pasternak, said:

In the early 1940s, Durbin continued her success with It's a Date (1940), Spring Parade (1940), Nice Girl? (1941), and It Started with Eve (1941), her last film with Pasternak and director Henry Koster. After Pasternak moved from Universal to MGM, Durbin was suspended between October 16, 1941 and early February 1942 for refusing to appear in They Lived Alone, which was scheduled to be directed by Koster. The project was canceled when Durbin and Universal settled their differences. In the agreement, Universal conceded to Durbin the approval of her directors, stories, and songs.

Following the two sequels to her first film Three Smart Girls, Durbin issued a press release announcing that she was no longer inclined to participate in these team efforts and was now performing as a solo artist. The Three Smart Girls Join Up title was changed to Hers to Hold (1943). In 1943, Durbin took on a more sophisticated role in the World War II story of refugee children from China, The Amazing Mrs. Holliday. Additional adult roles followed, including the film noir Christmas Holiday (1944), directed by Robert Siodmak, and the whodunit Lady on a Train (1945).

While these adult dramatic roles may have been more satisfying for Durbin, her fans preferred her in light musical confections such as Can't Help Singing (1944), her only Technicolor film, which featured some of the last melodies written by Jerome Kern plus lyrics by E. Y. Harburg.

In 1946, Universal merged with two other companies to create Universal-International. The new regime discontinued much of Universal's familiar product and scheduled only a few musicals. She stayed on for another four pictures: I'll Be Yours (1947), Something in the Wind (1947), Up in Central Park (1948), and For the Love of Mary (1948).

By 1948, however, her box-office clout began to diminish. In private life, On August 22, 1948, two months after completing her final film, Universal-International announced a lawsuit which sought to collect from Durbin $87,083 in wages the studio had paid her in advance.] Durbin settled the complaint by agreeing to star in three more pictures, including one in Paris. The studio allowed Deanna's contract to expire on August 31, 1949, so the three films were never made. Durbin, chose to retire from movies.

According to a family friend, Durbin died on or about April 20, 2013 in Neauphle-le-Château, France. She was 91 years old.

Remembering Richard Todd

Richard  Todd OBE (born 11 June 1919) was an Irish-born British soldier and stage and film actor.

Birth Name: Richard Andrew Palethorpe Todd
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5' 9"
Quote: "You don't consciously set out to do something gallant. You just do it because that is what you are there for."

Whilst performing in a play. he was spotted by Robert Lennard, a casting director for Associated British Picture Corporation, who offered him a screen test, and he subsequently signed a long-term contract in 1948. He was cast in For Them That Trespass (1949).

Todd had appeared in the Dundee Repertory stage version of The Hasty Heart, playing the role of Yank and was subsequently chosen to appear in the 1948 London stage version of the play, this time in the leading role of Cpl. Lachlan McLachlan. This led to his being cast in that role in the Warner Bros. film adaptation of the play, which was filmed in Britain. Todd was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role in 1949.

Alfred Hitchcock used him in Stage Fright (1950), then he made a film in Hollywood for King Vidor, Lightning Strikes Twice (1951). Neither did particularly well at the box office. He appeared in three films for the Disney Corporation, The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), The Sword and the Rose (1953) and Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953).

Todd's career received a boost when 20th Century-Fox signed him to a non-exclusive contract and cast him as the United States Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall in the film version of Catherine Marshall's best selling biography, A Man Called Peter (1955), which was a popular success.

In the mid-1950s Todd's acting career reached its zenith with performances as the epitome of the heroic English male lead in commercially successful and critically acclaimed films such as The Dam Busters (1955) in which he played Wing Commander Guy Gibson, which would become the defining role of his movie career. In the same year he appeared in The Virgin Queen opposite Bette Davis playing Walter Raleigh. Other notable films that he starred in during this period were Saint Joan (1957), directed by Otto Preminger and The Yangtse Incident (1957).

His career in films rapidly declined in the 1960s as the counter-culture movement in the Arts became fashionable in England, with Social-realist dramas commercially replacing the more middle-class orientated dramatic productions that Todd's performance character-type had previously excelled in.

Todd, who had been suffering from cancer, died in his sleep at a nursing home in Bourne in Lincolnshire on 3 December 2009, at age 90.

Remembering Julie Harris

Julie Harris (born December 2, 1925) was an American stage, screen, and television actress.

Birth Name: Julia Ann Harris
Hair: Red
Eyes: Blue/Grey
Height: 5' 3"
Quote: "Pictures make me look like a twelve-year-old boy who flunked his body-building course."

Harris's screen debut was in 1952, repeating her Broadway success as the monumentally lonely teenaged girl Frankie in Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Harris played the ethereal Eleanor Lance in The Haunting (1963), director Robert Wise's screen adaptation of a novel by Shirley Jackson, a classic film of the horror genre. Another cast member recalled Harris maintaining a social distance from the other actors while not on set, later explaining that she had done so as a method of emphasizing the alienation from the other characters experienced by her character in the film.

 She reprised her Tony-winning role as Mary Todd Lincoln in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1973) in the film version (1976). Another noteworthy film appearance was the World War II drama The Hiding Place (1975). She also appeared in such films as East of Eden (also 1955), with James Dean (with whom she became close friends), Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), with Paul Newman in the private-detective film Harper (1966), and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967).

For her television work, Harris had won three Emmy Awards and had been nominated 11 times. One of her most famous television roles was as Queen Victoria, in the 1961 Hallmark Hall of Fame production of Laurence Housman's Victoria Regina, for which she won an Emmy. Earlier, also for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, she starred as Nora Helmer opposite Christopher Plummer in A Doll's House (1959), a 90-minute television adaptation of Ibsen's play. She made more appearances in leading roles on the Hallmark program than any other actress, also appearing in two different adaptations of the play Little Moon of Alban. In her later career, she was perhaps best known as country singer Lilimae Clements, the eccentric and protective mother of Valene Ewing (played by Joan Van Ark) on the CBS nighttime soap opera Knots Landing. The role was as a guest appearance in 1980 before returning as a series regular from 1981–87.

She was a 10-time Tony Award nominee and five-time winner. She also won three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the 1952 film The Member of the Wedding. She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, received the National Medal of Arts in 1994,and the 2002 Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award.

Harris died on August 24, 2013, of congestive heart failure at her home in West Chatham, Massachusetts, aged 87.

Remembering Lou Rawls

Lou Rawls (December 1, 1933) was an American recording artist, voice actor, songwriter, and record producer.  Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game".

Birth Name: Louis Allen Rawls
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5' 10"
Quote: "I don't put myself in any particular category. Whatever the occasion calls for, I rise to the occasion. There are no limits to music, so why should I limit myself?"

Rawls released more than 60 albums, sold more than 40 million records, and had numerous charting singles, most notably his song "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine". He worked as a television, motion picture, and voice actor. He was also a three-time Grammy-winner, all for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.

Throughout Rawls' singing career, he had the opportunity to appear in many films, television shows, and commercials. His first acting credit was in the western television series The Big Valley (starring Barbara Stanwyck, along with Lee Majors and Linda Evans). Here he delivered the memorable line, "Ain't a horse that can't be rode; ain't a man that can't be throwed." He can be seen in such films as Leaving Las Vegas, Blues Brothers 2000, and Angel, Angel, Down We Go.

Lou also brought his flair to children's programming, becoming the singing voice of the animated feline Garfield. In 1982, he was Grammy-nominated for Best Recording for Children for Here Comes Garfield and is the musical star of the "Garfield" TV specials.

 Lou Rawls died from lung and brain cancer on January 6, 2006, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, at age 72.