After a long, long hiatus, the illustration showcase website Monday Artday is back with a vengeance! The first challenge, in nearly seven months, is “daily chores”. He didn’t mind the “Fee-ing” and the “Fi-ing” and the “Foe-ing” and the “Fum-ing”, but the Beanstalk Giant couldn’t stand grinding the bones to make his bread.
Alexa Kenin began acting as a child, landing her first role opposite Academy Award-winning actor Jason Robards in the 1972 TV movie The House Without a Christmas Tree. She appeared in several more TV productions, including five Afterschool Specials. The 80s brought Alexa her big-screen debut in the Tatum O’Neal-Kristy MacNichol teen camp film Little …
When my parents gave me my first box of crayons and a blank drawing pad, they had no idea I would turn it into a career. I majored in art in high school and attended a vocational art school after spending a year in the retail world and realizing that I was better suited for …
Teenage aspiring dancer Beryl Heischuber answered a casting call ad and landed a role in the 1928 production of Vanities at the Earl Carroll Broadway theatre. Using the more accessible (and more pronounceable) name “Wallace”, Beryl appeared amid dozens of other young dancers billed under the umbrella title “the most beautiful girls in the world”. …
Tsutomu Yamaguchi worked as a draftsman designing oil tankers for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Nagasaki. Japanese industry was suffering as a result of World War II. Resources and materials grew more and more difficult to come by. Tsutomu, like many Japanese, felt Japan should have never started a war. He became despondent over his homeland’s …
For as long as he could remember, Tommy Lasorda, the longest tenured employee with the Dodgers organization, including twenty years as team manager, loved baseball. Growing up in a poor family in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Tommy could never afford to attend to a real Major League baseball game. When he was fifteen, Tommy joined his high …
Tom Forman was a prolific “triple threat” in the early days of Hollywood. He was an actor in over 50 films beginning in 1913. He wrote seven screenplays and he was a sought-after director, calling the shots on over twenty-seven films. He directed top stars of the day including Lon Chaney and Mary Astor. In …
This week’s Illustration Friday word is “prepare.” “Artie is a singer, and I’m a writer and a player and a singer. We didn’t work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.” Paul Simon I understand the popularity of Simon and Garfunkel. I am aware of Paul Simon’s songwriting ability …
It was through his piano-playing stepsister that Leon “Chu” Berry was introduced to music at a young age. He stuck with it, playing alto saxophone through high school. He later switched to tenor sax after hearing jazz virtuoso Coleman Hawkins. (Although cited as an influence, Coleman Hawkins considered Chu an equal). Chu began his professional career …
Over thirty years, Sammee Tong appeared in over seventy movies and television shows as houseboys, cooks, waiters and any number if stereotypical roles that Hollywood offered Chinese-American actors. Sammee worked regularly in Westerns and in the “Charlie Chan” and “Mr. Moto” detective series. He even tried his hand at comedy as a laundry owner in …
