R.i.p. 2008

[newb]

Van Johnson @ 92


not too many here will know him

[novadawn969]

Originally Posted by _____V_____

Real beauty in every sense of those two words. She epitomised sexuality and glamorised it in an era of revolutionary cinema and media.

R.I.P. wonderful and sexy Bettie Page.

Sad part is that my dad told me she died.

[missmacabre]

Originally Posted by novadawn969

Sad part is that my dad told me she died.

My boyfriend had to break the news to me yesterday. I re-watched The Notorious Betty Page last night. I honestly lost a personal hero though, and was really sad. I feel almost like I did when Steve Irwin died, I don't quite believe it's true. I take everything a little too seriously though so don't mind me.

[neverending]

Originally Posted by missmacabre

My boyfriend had to break the news to me yesterday. I re-watched The Notorious Betty Page last night. I honestly lost a personal hero though, and was really sad. I feel almost like I did when Steve Irwin died, I don't quite believe it's true. I take everything a little too seriously though so don't mind me.

I understand exactly what you mean. Steve Irwin was really sad. And Forry Ackerman meant the same thing to me- he was a friend from my childhood. Losing Vonnegut earlier this year was very hard too.

[_____V_____]

We seem to have missed one in-between...




Beverly Garland, the B-movie actress who starred in 1950s cult hits such as “Swamp Women” and “Not of This Earth” and who went on to play Fred MacMurray’s TV wife on “My Three Sons,” died Friday, December 5th, at her Hollywood Hills home after a lengthy illness.

She was 82.

Garland made her film debut in the 1950 noir classic “D.O.A.,” launching a 50-year career that included 40 movies and dozens of television shows.



She gained cult status for playing gutsy women in low-budget exploitation films such as “The Alligator People” and a number of Roger Corman movies including “Gunslinger,” “It Conquered the World” and “Naked Paradise.”

“I never considered myself very much of a passive kind of actress,” she said in a 1985 interview with Fangoria magazine. “I was never very comfortable in love scenes, never comfortable playing a sweet, lovable lady.”



Garland showed her comedic chops as Bing Crosby’s wife in short-lived mid-’60s sitcom “The Bing Crosby Show.”

She went on to be cast in “My Three Sons” as the second wife of MacMurray’s widower Steve Douglas during the last three seasons of the popular series that aired from 1960-72.

Her television credits also included “Remington Steele,” “Scarecrow and Mrs. King,” “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and “7th Heaven.”

Garland was born Beverly Fessenden in Santa Cruz, Calif., and grew up in Glendale. She married actor Richard Garland, but they were divorced in 1953 after less than four years together.

In 1960, she married real estate developer Fillmore Crank, and the couple built a Mission-style hotel in North Hollywood, now called Beverly Garland’s Holiday Inn. Garland, whose husband died in 1999, remained involved in running the hotel.

She was the honorary mayor of North Hollywood and served on the boards of the California Tourism Corp. and the Greater Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau.

[neverending]

She definitely smoked up the screen in DOA. RIP Beverly.

[_____V_____]

This is very sad... :(


Robert Mulligan, who directed the classic film “To Kill a Mockingbird,” with its sensitive look at a child’s world shaken by the racism of a Southern town, died Saturday in Lyme, Conn., after a battle with heart disease.

He was 83.



Mulligan was nominated for an Oscar for “Mockingbird,” the adaptation of Harper Lee’s bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

The 1962 film starred Gregory Peck, who won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch, the small-town lawyer who defends a black man falsely accused of rape.

The story unfolds largely from the point of view of Atticus’ young daughter, Scout, memorably played by Mary Badham. Phillip Alford played his son, Jem.

The New York Times wrote that the film’s opening segment “achieves a bewitching indication of the excitement and thrill of being a child.”

Mulligan was also known as the director of Reese Witherspoon’s first film, “The Man in the Moon,” which came out in 1991. It was his last film, and the family drama brought Witherspoon notice as the younger of two teenage daughters grappling with her first love.

Among his other credits were “Fear Strikes Out,” the 1957 drama starring Anthony Perkins as troubled ballplayer Jim Piersall; “Summer of ‘42,” the 1971 wartime coming-of-age story starring Gary Grimes and Jennifer O’Neill; and the 1972 horror hit “The Other.”

Additional notable features he directed included “Inside Daisy Clover,” “Love With the Proper Stranger,” “Up the Down Staircase” and “Same Time, Next Year,” with Ellen Burstyn and Alan Alda.

He also carved out a solid career as a TV director before moving over to film, working on such drama series as “Studio One,” “The Philco Television Playhouse” and “The Alcoa Hour.”

But “Mockingbird” would remain his most famous work. In 2003, an American Film Institute listing of the top heroes in film history ranked Peck’s Atticus Finch as No. 1.

“The big danger in making a movie of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is in thinking of this as a chance to jump on the segregation-integration soapbox,” Mulligan told the New York Times in 1961 while the planning for the film was in its early stages. “The book does not make speeches. It is not melodramatic.”

Mulligan was born in the Bronx, N.Y., and studied at Fordham U.

He is survived by his wife of 37 years, Sandy; three children; two grandchildren; and a brother.



R.I.P. from a very sad person typing this...

[urgeok2]

Originally Posted by _____V_____

“Summer of ‘42,” the 1971 wartime coming-of-age story starring Gary Grimes and Jennifer O’Neill; and the 1972 horror hit “The Other.”

...

amazing films

[zwoti]

[neverending]

I was coming here to post both of these. Great losses, both of them. Pinter was a hugely influential playwright. Kitt was the best Catwoman ever and a bold artist who exuded sexuality- particularly in her music, very overtly. I'll miss them both.

I have 6.5 hours of Eartha Kitt music and will do a marathon in tribute. Not sure exactly when, yet.