from my sketchbook: klaus nomi

He would have you believe that he landed on this planet from some far off galaxy, but in reality, Klaus Nomi was born in Germany (on planet Earth) in 1944. In his youth, he worked as an usher at the Deutsche Oper in West Berlin where he’d entertain the other ushers and the maintenance staff …

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from my sketchbook: joseph kearns

Character actor Joseph Kearns began his career in the heyday of radio in the unlikely role of a pipe organ player. He soon was performing regularly on radio programs like I Married Joan, December Bride, Burns and Allen, Sam Spade and many others. He was the mysterious announcer “The Man in Black” on the radio …

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from my sketchbook: dorothy dell

Dorothy Dell aspired to fame from the time she was a child. She won a “Beautiful Baby” contest in her native Hattiesburg, Mississippi at one year old and continued to enter and win others throughout her childhood. In high school in Louisiana, she made friends with Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton, another aspiring actress. The pair became known …

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from my sketchbook: lorene yarnell

After meeting while filming the Sid and Marty Krofft special Fol-de-Rol  in 1972, tap dancer Lorene Yarnell married mime Robert Shields in a flamboyant, but silent ceremony in San Francisco’s Union Square. Soon, the duo were cast as regular performers on The Mac Davis Show  and later, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.  They performed …

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Monday Artday: villain, part 2

This week’s Monday Artday challenge word is “villain.”  Here is the second of two illustrations for this suggestion. (Here is the first.) One of the slimiest, shiftiest villains to ever grace the silver screen was the despicable Hans Guber, as portrayed by Alan Rickman, in the original “Die Hard”. Under the guise of a group of …

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