Charles McGraw made a career as a B-move leading man. With his hulking build, gravelly voice and craggy looks, he starred as countless military men and law enforcement officers, and the occasional gangster, in over 140 movies and television shows from the early 40s until the mid-70s. Although mostly cast in film noir, he played …
In the long-ago days when a band called Led Zeppelin still existed, when the mention of The Rolling Stones entering a recording studio did not evoke an exasperated “eye roll” and Cat Stevens was singing about the joys of moonshadows instead of Jihad, a local stop on your favorite band’s concert tour came with the perennial regularity of Daylight Savings Time, the …
This week’s Illustration Friday‘s challnege word is “gesture”. If you want a symbolic gesture, don’t burn the flag; wash it. Norman Thomas Norman Thomas was a noted pacifist, war critic, conscientious objector, co-founder of the National Civil Liberties Bureau (the precursor to the ACLU) and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. …
In 1935, Münir Ertegün moved his family to Washington, DC when he served as the first ambassador of the new republic of Turkey. Son Nesuhi Ertegun took his nine year-old brother Ahmet to jazz clubs to see Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. Soon Ahmet and Nesuhi were staging jazz concerts, booking the acts themselves. Expanding …
Kitty Genovese was headed home after another late evening at Ev’s Eleventh Hour, the bar in Hollis, Queens where she worked as the night manager. She parked her car in the Long Island Railroad parking lot and began to walk the one hundred feet to her apartment across the street. The entrance was located at …
The Illustration Friday website offers “stay” as this week’s challenge word. Stay Just a little bit longer Please Please, please, please, please Tell me you’re going to
Billy Laughlin was discovered by an MGM talent scout outside a movie theater doing Popeye imitations for his friends. Soon, Billy was starring in the final run of the Our Gang film series as “Froggy”. He spoke in the gravelly croak that brought him fame in 29 shorts beginning with The New Pupil in 1940 through Dancing …
Larry and Roger Troutman had no idea how influential their band would be. They just wanted to play the funk. Roger made a deal with his childhood friend, bassist Bootsy Collins. They vowed that whoever became more famous would help the other achieve the same level of fame. In 1978, Roger founded Zapp with his …
In 1964, Barbara Colby gave a well-received performance in Six Characters in Search of an Author. This led to Broadway, where she made her debut the following year in The Devils with co-stars Anne Bancroft, Jason Robards, James Coco and Albert Dekker. She garnered positive reviews for her roles in numerous plays throughout the remainder …
Bobby Buntrock got his first taste of acting on an episode of Wagon Train at the age of seven. He landed the part of little Harold Baxter on the sitcom Hazel with Oscar winner Shirley Booth as the problem-solving maid for George and Dorothy Baxter as played by Don DeFore and Whitney Blake (Meredith Baxter’s mother). …
