Gladys George made her stage debut at age 3 alongside her showbiz parents. It was her Broadway debut, at age 18 opposite Isadora Duncan, that seemed to be Gladys’ path to stardom. She was a hit in the comedy Personal Appearance, which Mae West adapted for the film Go West, Young Man. West took Gladys’ …
When I graduated from high school, I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do with my life. I was working as a cashier at the women’s clothing store that my mother managed. I was planning on a career in the retail business, perhaps one day working my way up to manager myself. But, …
Prolific director Allan Dwan saw 12-year-old Jane Peters playing baseball on a Los Angeles street and cast her in his film The Perfect Crime in 1921. Young Jane was a contract player in low-budget films for Fox and Pathé, until both studios dropped her and she signed with Paramount. Jane, now using the stage name …
She was a seven-year old, just dancing in her father’s drug store, when a representative of RCA Victor hired her to advertise Victrolas at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition. A short time afterwards, young Lina Basquette was studying ballet. At ten, she was signed to a contract with Universal Pictures to star in a series …
“I’ve been searchin’ So long To find an answer” — “I’ve Been Searching So Long” by Jimmy Pankow, as recorded by Chicago In early 1974, I would go every Saturday afternoon to Art Levin’s apartment in Northeast Philadelphia for Bar Mitzvah lessons. Art was the son of the rabbi that married my parents in 1955. …
A man is in a strange town and he has to catch a bus. He looks down at his watch and sees that the crystal has cracked and his watch has stopped. He’s upset and he frantically scans the street for some help. Up ahead, he notices a storefront with a giant clock hanging outside …
In 1973, I was in 6th grade and I thought I was hot shit. When I entered Watson T. Comly Elementary School as a lowly first grader, I was scared and intimidated by the upperclassmen. They were cool and, to my tiny, impressionable eyes, they were so… so… grown up. Some of the 6th grade …
“Hey, Farney, I don’t know if that was you who really caught that ball, but that was pretty good if it was.” After an unremarkable debut with the Toronto Blue Jays, Ryan Freel came into his own with a free agency signing with the Cincinnati Reds. Ryan showed himself to be a pretty reliable and …
Charles Boyer will be remembered as one of Hollywood’s most romantic leading men. Starring opposite some of the silver screen’s most desirable leading ladies – Hedy Lamarr, Marlene Dietrich, Merle Oberon – Charles was a first class charmer. He succeeded in making the female members of the audience swoon along with his female co-stars. Warner …
She was Hollywood’s first cowgirl. Mary Louise “Texas” Guinan burst out of Waco, Texas and kept her home state’s name as a moniker when she appeared in a slew of silent films in the early part of the twentieth century. She earned herself the nickname “Queen of the West.” but soon, the always opportunistic “Texas” …
