Chico Ruiz had an unremarkable career. He hit two home runs in his rookie season and never hit another. He played eight seasons in the majors with a lifetime batting average of .240. About average. But, on September 21, 1964, Chico Ruiz became the bane of every baseball fan in Philadelphia. In a scoreless game …
THe current Illustration Friday challenge word is “ferocious”. This is Grim Ruthless, the most ferocious man to ever live. He eats termite-infested tree trunks for breakfast. He lives in a huge boulder that he hollowed out with his teeth and bare hands. His living room has wall-to-wall broken glass. He once beat up a dump truck …
Beverly Neill was working as a telephone operator when she began to take some small roles in a few MGM productions. Using the stage name “Amanda Blake” , she appeared with Judy Garland and James Mason in the first remake of A Star is Born in 1954. The following year, she signed on for the …
Vicki Morgan wanted everything – money, sex, drugs, fame – and for the most part, she got it. Born in Colorado, the sixteen-year old willowy beauty was sent to a Catholic maternity home for girls in Los Angeles to hide her family’s shame over her unwanted pregnancy. At seventeen, she married Earle Lamm, thirty years …
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “mesmerizing”. In his doctoral dissertation of 1766, De influxu planetarum in corpus humanum [“The Influence of the Planets upon the Human Body”], physician Franz Mesmer theorized that a natural energy force exists and flows continuously over the body. He publicized his belief that this energy was influenced by the …
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “boundaries”. Mother lays down boundaries to keep baby …um …safe. That’s right. Safe.
On a bright August afternoon in 1867, eight-year old Fanny Adams, along with her little sister Lizzie and her friend Minnie Warner, went to play near Flood Meadow, just up Tan House Lane from her home in southeast England. While the girls played, they were approached by Frederick Baker, a 29-year old, well-dressed solicitor’s clerk. …
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “mysterious”. On Saturday, I went to meet my son at a free concert at the Great Plaza on the Delaware River’s waterfront. Instead of driving and fighting for a parking space on a busy holiday weekend, I took the train into downtown Philadelphia. I disembarked at the Market …
My wife’s grandmother turned 101 this past July. When I met her nearly thirty years ago, she was a feisty, strong-willed woman who called things as she saw them and took no shit from anyone. She came from humble beginnings in Russia and lived an even more humble existence upon her arrival in the United …
Continue reading ‘from my sketchbook: an exercise in selfishness’ »
While studying criminal law at the Sorbonne in her native Paris, Corinne Calvet dabbled in acting on French radio dramas and on the stage. She appeared in a few French-produced films until noted producer Hal Wallis brought her to Hollywood and cast her in Rope of Sand opposite Burt Lancaster in 1949. She went on …
